Despite his civilian dress, there was no mistaking his role in the secret police when he reached into our Toyota to block the Nikon lens of my 17-year-old daughter Mariah. She was recording the beating of a woman by his colleagues.

Morocco has been able to persist in flouting its international legal obligations toward Western Sahara largely because France and the United States have continued to arm Moroccan occupation forces and blocked enforcement of resolutions.

Moroccan authorities continue to subject Sahrawi people who openly advocate self-determination or denounce Moroccan human rights violations to various forms of repression.

Most Americans are currently unaware of an ailing human rights campaigner from Western Sahara now in the third week of a risky hunger strike after being expelled from her occupied homeland by Moroccan authorities.