CCPR/C/128/D/2924/2016 However, he was not allowed to see his father again. The guards merely told him that he could leave the personal effects with them and they would pass them on to his father. Over the course of the following weeks, Ahmed Braih’s oldest son returned several times to the Blida military prison to ask again to see his father. Each time, however, his request to visit was denied; the guards simply took the personal effects he had brought and assured him that they would hand them over to Ahmed Braih. 2.8 Realizing that he would not be allowed to see his father again, Ahmed Braih’s oldest son then went back to the Tindouf camps. Ahmed Braih’s family members again asked the leadership of the Frente POLISARIO why he was being held at the Blida military prison, why the Algerian authorities would not allow them to visit him and whether he was to be tried, but they never received a reply.3 Thus, since early April 2011, when Ahmed Braih’s oldest son was allowed to visit him once, his family members have had no news of him despite their constant requests and efforts to that end. The family fears that his abduction and disappearance are the direct result of political differences with the leadership of the Frente POLISARIO and the Algerian authorities, in particular on the management of the Tindouf refugee camps and the human rights violations committed in those camps. 2.9 On an unspecified date, Ahmed Braih’s oldest son wrote to the Minister of Justice to explain the situation and ask him to intervene with the authorities in order to allow family members to visit the victim. Having obtained no reply, he sent another letter to the Minister of Defence, also without success. Despite repeated requests for information addressed to the Frente POLISARIO and the Algerian authorities, Ahmed Braih’s family has never been told what has happened to him, why he was arrested or whether he has been or will be brought before a court. Neither the Frente POLISARIO nor the Algerian authorities have responded to these requests. 2.10 On 21 October 2014, the author submitted his father’s case to the Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances. The Working Group wrote to the Algerian authorities but never received a reply. Members of the Frente POLISARIO leadership did, however, meet with several members of the victim’s family after the case was registered by the Working Group and after it was referred to in a public report issued by Human Rights Watch.4 They threatened the family members, stating that it was “in their interest to stop pursuing any legal proceedings in Algeria or at the international level”, and asked them not to inquire further into the fate of Ahmed Braih, adding that the problem would be “resolved informally between the Frente POLISARIO and the Algerian authorities”. To date, the family of Ahmed Braih has received no other information as to his fate. In view of the threats by Frente POLISARIO agents, several of Ahmed Braih’s children, including the author and his older brother, were forced to leave the Tindouf camps and to take refuge in Europe for fear of arrest or retaliation. 2.11 In desperation, on 23 June 2016, the author wrote to the Public Prosecutor of Algiers, describing the facts and circumstances of his father’s disappearance and requesting the authorities to open an investigation and to inform the family of its results. The request was left unanswered and the family has received no news of the victim to date. 2.12 The author maintains that domestic remedies vis-à-vis the State party are not effectively available. Persons living in refugee camps under the de facto administration of the Frente POLISARIO cannot bring proceedings before the Algerian courts; the latter systematically refer such persons to the parallel “judicial” authorities set up by the Frente POLISARIO. The author recalls that his older brother sent letters to the Ministers of Justice and Defence and that both letters went unanswered, and that he was then warned by the Frente POLISARIO not to make any further approaches to the Algerian authorities. Moreover, in this case, the victim’s two sons whom the family had entrusted with the task of taking the necessary steps to find their father have had to flee the State party, where they 3 4 GE.20-14652 The author adds that, as a result of these efforts and because of their insistence, several members of the family of Ahmed Braih, including the victim’s sons and brothers, have been stopped for questioning, threatened with retaliation by Frente POLISARIO officials and even forbidden to leave the camps. Human Rights Watch, Off the Radar: Human Rights in the Tindouf Refugee Camps, 18 October 2014. 3