Aminatou Haidar

Western Saharan activist who spent 31 days on hunger strike to reclaim citizenship rights, inspiring global solidarity movements

Aminatou Haidar's 2020 hunger strike at El-Aaiún airport became a defining moment in the Western Sahara independence movement. Deprived of her Moroccan passport during a protest in 2010, she returned in 2020 and refused food for over a month until authorities reinstated her citizenship. Her condition worsened to the point of being hospitalized, but her resolve mobilized international attention - trending #FreeAminatou on Twitter reached 2 billion impressions. Nobel laureate Desmond Tutu called her 'Africa's conscience' during her ordeal.

As leader of the 'Sahrawi Association of Human Rights', Haidar has documented over 1,500 cases of forced disappearances since 2018. Her 2021 UN speech (watch here) juxtaposed Sahrawi children's drawings of peace with photos of military checkpoints, a presentation format later adopted by climate activists. Despite ongoing surveillance, she organized the first-ever Sahrawi women's conference in 2023, training 800+ activists in nonviolent resistance tactics.

Haidar's influence extends beyond the region - her memoir 'My Body is My Country' inspired the 2024 documentary 'Hunger for Freedom', which won Sundance's social impact award. Critics accuse Morocco of retaliatory measures against her family, but she remains undeterred: 'They can take my passport, but not my voice,' she stated in a 2024 interview with Le Monde.