Feed aggregator

En ny rapport visar att Marocko bedriver omfattande övervakning av aktivister från Västsahara. Men övervakningsstaten sträcker sig längre än så. EU måste fråga sig vad man stödjer genom ett omfattande samarbete kring säkerhet och migration med Marocko, skriver Mohamed El Baikam.

I april 2021 berättade jag för The Guardian att sahrawiska aktivisters telefoner och internetuppkopplingar hackades. Då kunde vi beskriva vad som hände med oss. Men vi kunde inte se maskineriet bakom det.

Fem år senare ger Amnesty Internationals nya granskning, ”We Start With the Verdict”: Inside Morocco’s Surveillance Machine. Amnesty beskriver ett övervakningsekosystem som omfattar spionprogram, fysisk övervakning, platslokalisering, informatörer, rättsliga påtryckningar och smutskastningskampanjer.

Organisationen ägnar en särskild fallstudie åt sahrawiska aktivister och uppger att en tidigare medlem av Marockos inhemska underrättelsetjänst, identifierad som ”Safir”, beskrev sahrawier och rifianer som prioriterade underrättelsemål — även utanför Marocko. Amnesty säger sig oberoende ha verifierat hans identitet, anställning och centrala delar av hans vittnesmål.

Rapporten innehåller också kriminaltekniska bevis kopplade till spionprogrammet Pegasus och dokumenterar fall med anknytning till sahrawisk aktivism som nått europeiskt territorium.

De personer Amnesty har granskat är bara toppen av isberget. Det rör sig om dokumenterade fall: människor som forskare kunnat intervjua, enheter som kunnat undersökas eller målpersoner där annan bevisning funnits tillgänglig.

Den nedkylande effekten

När en säkerhetstjänst vet vem en aktivist talar med, vart personen reser och vad som finns i telefonen kan information bli makt.

Amnesty dokumenterar fall där privat information som samlats in genom övervakning senare har dykt upp i medier och i samordnade smutskastningskampanjer mot människorättsförsvarare.

Organisationen är försiktig: den har inte självständigt kunnat fastställa källan till varje privat uppgift som publicerats. Men den uppger att karaktären på vissa av uppgifterna väcker allvarliga frågor om huruvida information som hämtats från övervakning kan ha nått medieaktörer.

För sahrawier väcker detta en uppenbar fråga: Hur tar sig privat information om aktivister från deras liv och deras enheter ut i offentligheten?

Den frågan förtjänar en oberoende kriminalteknisk utredning.

Men Amnestys rapport borde också föranleda en annan granskning — i Washington och i Europas huvudstäder. I årtionden har västerländska regeringar byggt nära säkerhetsrelationer med Marocko kring terrorismbekämpning, underrättelsesamarbete, migration och regional stabilitet.

Frågan är inte om dessa relationer bör existera. Frågan är om väst tillräckligt noggrant har granskat vad som händer med säkerhetskapaciteter när de väl befinner sig i händerna på partnerländer.

Amnesty fastslår inte att alla säkerhetskapaciteter som Marocko fått genom västerländskt samarbete har använts mot sahrawier. Bevisningen stöder inte en så långtgående slutsats.

Den motiverar däremot svårare frågor.

Vilka skyddsmekanismer följde med säkerhetssamarbetet? Vem övervakade hur kapaciteterna slutligen användes? Vad händer när verktyg som utvecklats eller införskaffats i en miljö präglad av terrorismbekämpning riktas mot fredlig människorättsaktivism?

Det är gränsen mellan säkerhet och förtryck.

Kampen om Västsahara

Motsägelsen är särskilt tydlig eftersom sahrawisk människorättsaktivism ofta har byggt på fredliga metoder: demonstrationer, dokumentation, journalistik och kontakt med internationella institutioner.

Amnesty rapporterar om inskränkningar av yttrande- och mötesfriheten i frågor som rör sahrawiska rättigheter, tillsammans med uppgifter om godtyckliga gripanden, långvarig övervakning, restriktioner som drabbar familjer och upplösning av fredliga demonstrationer.

I juni 2021 avvisade Europaparlamentet uttryckligen Marockos användning av gränskontroll och migration — särskilt med koppling till ensamkommande minderåriga — som ett politiskt påtryckningsmedel mot Spanien.

Samtidigt betonade samma resolution det långvariga förhållandet och samarbetet mellan Europeiska unionen och Marocko inom terrorismbekämpning, migration och handel.

Denna motsägelse borde spela roll för européer.

När demokratiska regeringar gör en annan stat närmast oumbärlig för att bekämpa terrorism, kontrollera migration eller tillhandahålla underrättelser, ger de den inte bara resurser. De ger den också politiskt inflytande.

Med tiden kan rädslan för att förlora detta samarbete göra det svårare att granska partnern kritiskt.

Fråga på FN:s dagordning

Västsahara står fortfarande på FN:s dagordning och är knutet till en flera decennier lång internationell process om territoriets politiska framtid. Det borde ha betydelse för en Europeisk union som regelbundet hänvisar till en regelbaserad internationell ordning.

I nästan ett halvt sekel har generationer av sahrawier levt med restriktioner och dokumenterade övergrepp kopplade till politiska yttranden om Västsaharas framtid.

Barn har vuxit upp till vuxna samtidigt som de har sett vad som kan hända när någon uttrycker sin åsikt offentligt: övervakning, fängslande, smutskastningskampanjer, påtryckningar och rädsla.

Efter alla dessa år är det sahrawierna ber om inte komplicerat. Vi ber om något grundläggande:

Behandla sahrawiern som en fri människa — kapabel att tänka, välja och uttrycka en åsikt om framtiden för det land som han eller hon kallar sitt hem, utan rädsla.

Skriv inte svaret åt dem.

Låt dem tala.

Om en politisk lösning verkligen är rättvis — varför skulle den då frukta rösten från den människa som måste leva under den?

Mohamed El Baikam, människorättsaktivist för västsaharierna och skribent baserad i Bryssel

Inlägget Marockos övervakningsstat stannar inte vid Västsahara dök först upp på Dagens Arena.

"Tonight we all feel anger and shame... We all asked: How can French people do this to France?" said Macron

Något ljushuvud på Sveavägen 68 har givit Magdalena Andersson rådet att inte jämt se så bister och förbannad ut.
Le. Och se. Det blev värre. Nu ser hon ut som en arg människa som försöker se glad ut. Spooky.

Magdalena Andersson inväntar och kräver att andra ska släppa sina röda linjer, men har själv en röd linje om att sitta i regering. Hon är inte bra på allt, Magdalena Andersson. Men hyckla, det kan hon. https://t.co/tSJC21kalz

— Susanna Silfverskiöld (@susannasilfver) October 17, 2026

'It is obvious this is part of the hybrid war being waged by Russia, involving acts of sabotage' the prime minister said

Rising smoke was visible from Saint Petersburg's historic city centre

Israeli settlers attack a convoy of European diplomats and beat up a visiting French mayor, witnesses said

The capital experienced 'a level of violence that we have never, I believe, seen before,' said Paris deputy mayor Lamia El Aaraje

Moderaterna röstade med de rödgröna för att tillåta byte av juridiskt kön. Ren dårskap sa vi från Sverigedemokraterna. Nu ändrar sig Moderaterna. “Biologiskt kön ska vara styrande”, säger man nu när manlig mördare härjar på kvinnoanstalt.

Det är rena dårhuset i svensk politik på många områden. Den “starka” statsministerkandidaten Magdalena Andersson (S) får inte till någon regering eftersom hon inte ägnat en sekund åt att förbereda sitt tilltänkta regeringsunderlag. Förre justitieministern Tomas Bodström (S) förklarar att det var partiets strategi att vara otydliga, för hade man försökt förbereda de rödgröna som regeringsalternativ hade man förlorat. S förde alltså väljarna bakom ryggen. Och nu står vi där, utan regering.

Sedan går en barnamördare bärsärk på kvinnoanstalt sedan han bytt juridiskt kön. Kvinnorna på anstalten är skräckslagna när mannen kommer in i duschen. Denna konsekvens pekade SD på inför riksdagsbeslutet, men Moderaterna körde på i den utopiska villfarelsen att män kan vara kvinnor och att lagstiftningen ska anpassas till dessa dåraktiga påhitt.

Nu ändrar sig Moderaterna. Iallafall om vad som ska gälla på fängelser. “Det biologiska könet ska vara styrande”, säger socialtjänstminister Camilla Waltersson (M). Men tydligen ska bara förnuftet införas på anstalter. Utanför anstalterna ska juridiskt könsbyte fortsätta gälla, så att kriminella enkelt kan byta identiteter för att försvåra brottsutredningar.

Går det hitta på mer galna politiska projekt?

När ska förnuftet återvända till politiken?

Man kan fråga sig när förnuftet ska återvända till politiken. Valresultatet pekar mot att vi kommer att få än mer dårskap från rödgrönt håll under kommande fyra år. Svenska folket valde bort trygghet, stabilitet och minskad migration.

Ja, jag är bitter. Varför ska vi tvingas glida än mer bort från västerlandets värderingar in i kaos och känslostormar? Se på Frankrike. Där börjar man tala om inbördeskrig och att en tvåstatslösning kanske krävs, där islamisterna får en stat. Man bränner ner kulturarv som rådhuset i Limoges, plundrar butiker och vandaliserar hämningslöst. Vänsterextrema rörelser och islamister utnyttjar missnöje för att begå våldsdåd.

I Tyskland är ekonomin på fallrepet efter att man avvecklat kärnkraften och stryper industrin med gröna miljökrav.

Hur djupt ned i kaos måste våra samhällen sjunka innan väljarna röstar på partier som står för ordning och sunt förnuft?

Rome will change the rules to cut power prices, but the effect will likely be the same

Sveriges oljeberoende gör oss sårbara i en orolig omvärld. Ändå har elektrifieringen av…

Thierry Mariani, a French far-right MEP, says US sanctions were more effective than Europe’s actions

Protesters clashed with police in Paris and other cities in France on Saturday during nationwide rallies over high prices as the country heads towards a presidential election. Protesters broke into the town hall of France’s second-largest city of Marseille before being forced out by police. In Paris, police fired a water cannon and tear gas […]

Kulturnationalism eller klansamhälle?

Vad innebär det egentligen att vara svensk, och vilken väg ska Sverigedemokraterna välja efter valet? I veckans Riksronden diskuterar Richard Sörman och jag den växande idédebatten inom SD om nationalism, etnicitet och svenskhet.

Se också bloggartikel igår: Intensiv konservativ idédebatt om nationalism

Draft policy update suggests readiness to import Norwegian fuel from the Far North

Draft Council text lays out opt-in mechanism to defend “co-determination” rules

För första gången på nio år gick en hel månad utan skjutningar eller sprängningar i Stockholm.

Derogation would allow certain biogas residues to exceed existing fertiliser limits

Far-right activists are trying to dismantle global protections for LGBTQ+ people under the guise of ‘family values’

Originally published on Global Voices

US President Trump speaking at the U.N. General Assembly. Photo by The White House. Fair use.

This article by Hope Pisoni was originally published by Uncloseted Media, an LGBTQ+ focused investigative news outlet, on October 1, 2026. An edited version is being republished on Global Voices as part of a content partnership agreement. It has been edited for length and style.

On September 17, while the United Nations (U.N.) was hosting its annual General Assembly for diplomats and leaders from all over the world, several key figures filled a room across the street at the Millennium Hilton in Midtown Manhattan. Attendees included Trump administration officials, leaders of anti-LGBTQ+ hate groups, far-right politicians from Latin America and reporters from far-right media.

These people were meeting for the Global Forum for Life, Family and Freedoms, a two-day summit of right-wing leaders with an ambitious goal to create a new “pro-life and pro-family” Core Group at the U.N.

Since 2008, the U.N. has had an LGBTI Core Group with 42 member states whose mission is to advocate for LGBTQ+ rights on a global stage. But the organizers of this new group hope to create an opposing organization to push for policies that undermine reproductive and LGBTQ+ rights around the globe.

Aarón Lara, the Mexico-based conservative activist who came up with the idea for the group, said in an August article that the existing LGBTI Core Group has only been successful because there has not been organized conservative opposition, which a new core group would provide.

Lara (left) speaking with a reporter in the Dominican Republic in March. Screenshot via Central Noticias YouTube.

“[The LGBTI Core Group] has successfully established victimhood narratives and incorporated observances with global impact. … I always use this example: If it were a soccer match and one team failed to show up, the winner by default would be the team that was present,” Lara said.

Lara and other supporters of the group agreed at the forum to draw up plans for its creation in the coming months. They may be encouraged to move quickly because the group’s leaders have said they want to use the U.S.’s global influence and capitalize on the current administration’s anti-LGBTQ and anti-abortion stance to do it. The U.S. recently left the LGBTI Core Group, an early move by Trump in his second term.

What is a Core Group?

The LGBTI Core Group describes itself as “an informal cross-regional group of United Nations Member States.” While it is not an official U.N. body, its work includes ensuring that LGBTQ+ people are considered and protected across all of the U.N.’s activities, from humanitarian aid to human rights resolutions.

For example, one of the first U.N. resolutions to reference LGBTQ+ people was one protecting civilians against extrajudicial executions. When some members tried to remove LGBTQ people from those protections, advocates and allies fought to keep them in place. Maria Sjödin, executive director of Outright International, an NGO that focuses on supporting LGBTQ rights worldwide, told Uncloseted Media that work like this could be in jeopardy should the new core group come to fruition.

“We’re talking about the protection of some very basic human rights, and that the opposition to that is trying to organize to make it even more difficult to pass such a thing is really quite horrible,” she says.

Core groups are not official U.N. bodies, so there is no strictly required procedure for their creation. While there have been other core groups established at the U.N., the LGBTI group is unique in that it is designed for continuous operation on multiple issues rather than as a response to a specific conflict or crisis. The “pro-life, pro-family” core group would change that, threatening to shift the balance of power at the U.N.

Ipas, an international NGO that seeks to increase access to safe abortions and contraception, shared a briefing paper, “The Pro-Life and Pro-Family Core Group: The Evangelical Architecture Supporting Anti-Gender Initiatives at the United Nations,” with Uncloseted Media. It explains that this core group would allow anti-LGBTQ+ and anti-abortion governments to collaborate on “coordinated voting” to “dilute, block, or impose conditions on language regarding sexual and reproductive health and rights.” The briefing also predicts that the core group would accelerate existing efforts to portray anti-LGBTQ+ politics as “sovereign resistance” against “globalism” in the public eye.

“This discourse … asserts national sovereignty over agreed-upon international human rights, reframing sexual and reproductive rights as an external imposition rather than as already recognized human rights standards,” the briefing reads.

How did we get here?

The first CIVF, held in Mexico City in 2017. Image from CIVF via Wikimedia Commons. CC BY-SA 4.0.

Lara is the founder and president of the Ibero-American Congress for Life and Family (CIVF). Founded in Mexico City in 2017, CIVF describes itself as “Un movimiento de reforma moral, educativa, social y jurídica por la vida y la familia” (a movement for moral, educational, social, and legal reform for life and family) and is best known for holding an annual congress for leaders, primarily from Latin America and Spain, to discuss the promotion of socially conservative policies.

In a 2021 article in an evangelical publication, Lara said that his group had applied to become a core group at the U.N.

“We have the conviction that it is our responsibility as believers to be a light in the midst of darkness, this is why [we] are making this big effort,” he said.

The third CIVF, held in Panama in 2019. Image from CIVF via Wikimedia Commons. CC BY-SA 4.0.

While that application never came to fruition, Lara remained interested in starting a U.N. core group, and announced in July 2026 that CIVF — which did not respond to Uncloseted Media’s request for comment — was launching a new plan to do so.

How did the US get involved?

The following month, Lara shared more details of the plan with The Washington Stand, a news outlet owned by Family Research Council, a Southern Poverty Law Center-designated anti-LGBTQ hate group closely affiliated with Focus on the Family. In the article, Lara says the goal is for the U.S. to sponsor the new group because of its powerful position on the world stage.

Sjödin is concerned about U.S. involvement in a group like this. “[It] already has an outsized influence on the world, so the U.S. potentially taking on a leadership role in a coalition like this also risks the effects being outsized and makes this an initiative that is going to be more difficult to challenge,” she says.

Valerie Huber speaking at CPAC Hungary in 2022. Image by Elekes Andor via Wikimedia Commons. CC BY-SA 4.0.

To that end, CIVF enlisted Valerie Huber, an influential American ally based in Washington, D.C., in their fight. Huber, who co-led the September 17th forum alongside Lara, is an American right-wing activist who held multiple leadership roles at the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) during Trump’s first term. She has consistently promoted the exclusion of LGBTQ+ people in her work — the organization she led before getting her HHS appointment released a guideline that said “it would be inappropriate and unethical to assert or affirm” trans kids’ genders.

“Valerie Huber is internationally recognized in the anti-rights space,” Wendy Via, co-founder and president of the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism, told Uncloseted Media. “She is bringing some credibility [and] influence to the idea of creating a separate core group, so she’s gonna be able to get people to join with her.”

During her tenure at HHS, Huber helped craft the Geneva Consensus Declaration on Promoting Women’s Health and Strengthening the Family (GCD), an agreement between 46 countries, including the U.S. under both Trump administrations, affirming a commitment to hardline opposition to abortion and promoting the heteronormative nuclear family “as foundational to society.”

Critics have noted that many of the agreement’s signatories are led by notoriously authoritarian governments with harsh restrictions on LGBTQ+ people. For example, Saudi Arabia’s maximum penalty for gay sex is death, and Russia classifies the “international LGBT movement” as an extremist group.

During his first week in office, former president Joe Biden withdrew the U.S. from the GCD just months after its launch, stating, “It is the policy of my Administration to support women’s and girls’ sexual and reproductive health and rights in the United States, as well as globally.”

But Huber, now out of her government job and leading the anti-abortion NGO Institute for Women’s Health (IWH), continued to champion the agreement. She’s traveled around the world meeting heads of state, including in Burundi and Argentina, who would quickly go on to join the GCD, while developing more concrete plans to carry out its goals. IWH did not respond to a request for comment.

Within the first week of Trump’s second term, the U.S. rejoined the agreement, and in June, the U.S. assumed the leading secretariat position among its signatories. Via says pushing the core group initiative while the U.S. is the secretariat is likely strategic timing.

“The U.N. is seen as the boogeyman for far-right and Christian Nationalist groups, because their definition of human rights is expansive and inclusive, which is not what these organizations want,” Via says. “But they’re gonna work within the system because it looks like they have an opportunity.”

Huber has advocated in favor of the core group since August and has said that the GCD is “the substantive basis” for the work ahead.

“What has not yet been built is the intentional, sustained coordination that turns a shared commitment into shared strategy at the international negotiating table,” she told The Washington Stand. “A nation that arrives at a negotiation alone is outmatched. A nation that arrives having strategized with 40 others is not.”

The who’s who of the far right are on board

Faith leaders praying over Donald Trump in March 2025. Image via The White House. Fair use.

The September 17th forum was held in the hopes of creating a roadmap to execute the plans for the core group. The event was sponsored by Well Versed, an evangelical NGO whose mission is to bring “biblical principles of governance to government leaders and the people who elect them.”

The forum attracted a number of noteworthy guests. There were three representatives from the Trump administration, including Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau, Director of HHS Global Affairs Bethany Kozma, and Ellie Cohanim, the senior policy advisor at the U.S. mission to the U.N.

Leaders from several U.S.-based right-wing organizations also made appearances, including Turning Point USA Faith, C-Fam — which holds special consultative status at the U.N. — and Salt and Light Council, a group focused on getting churches involved in right-wing politics.

Via called these groups “the usual suspects” when it comes to work like this, but noted that their power has grown in recent years.

In addition to the power players from the U.S., there was a stacked lineup of folks from the global right. Lawmakers from Peru, Uruguay, and Guatemala, all countries where CIVF has been active, were present. Also in attendance was Artur Pawlowski, a Canadian far-right pastor known for his role in the Alberta Separatist movement; Armenian evangelical activist and former politician Stepan Sargsyan; and Dutch lobbyist Henk Jan van Schothorst.

What this lineup indicates, Via says, is that the Christian far-right is interested in wielding its outsized influence in the Trump administration to impact the global stage.

“It is the traction that the Christian nationalists have gained since Trump has been in office,” she says. “Because of the administration’s willingness to wield power and influence in other countries based on this Biblical worldview … you have had some political leaders be more accepting of the idea.”

What could this mean?

In her interview for The Washington Stand, Huber said that the point of the core group is to organize concrete action towards the goals of the GCD, which on its own is a non-binding agreement with no mechanism to enforce or ensure compliance among its signatories.

One way the core group should achieve that, Huber says, is through Protego, a project launched in 2023 by IWH that creates a road map for countries to follow in their policymaking on issues of women’s health. Outlined in their Women’s Optimal Health Framework, IWH advocates against abortion and promotes sex education that prioritizes abstinence and “prepar[ing] for a healthy marriage and future family.”

While the 62-page guide makes no explicit mention of LGBTQ people, Sjödin says that this kind of sex education, which has been widely criticized as ineffective, “is focused on promoting heterosexuality as the only form of acceptable sexuality.”

“It is used to push these binary norms that are harmful for anyone who doesn’t live up to it or doesn’t agree with it, and it limits access to education for young people who need to know both about themselves, especially if they don’t think of themselves as heterosexual, but also about everyone else so that they have an understanding that humans are different.”

Giammattei speaking at an IWH conference in 2021. Screenshot via the Government of Guatemala YouTube.

A few countries have already adopted Protego’s framework. Guatemala was the first, establishing a partnership with Huber and the IWH in June 2023 under the leadership of far-right then-president Alejandro Giammattei. The Protego project worked with the country’s Ministries of Health, Education and Social Development and developed a “Parent Child Communication Guide” that would promote IWH’s narratives on sex and family planning to Guatemalans.

Huber claims the guide, which was spread throughout the country via partnerships with influencers and faith and business leaders, has reached 3 million school-aged children in Guatemala.

Huber and Ugandan First Lady Janet Museveni signing the agreement of their partnership on Protego in 2024. Screenshot via UBC Television Uganda YouTube.

Uganda, where gay sex is punishable by death, was the next country to adopt the framework in early 2024. Unlike in Guatemala, specific details have been difficult to access and not publicly shared, but promoting abstinence-only sex education has been a publicly stated priority.

Other countries, including Hungary and Burundi, have also signaled their support for Protego, but less is known about their actions on the matter.

What happens now?

While the new core group has not yet been officially established, statements by Lara and Huber suggest an intention to do so in the near future.

“[It will take] less time than people assume, because the hardest part is already done,” Huber said in her Washington Stand interview. “The coalition exists. The shared commitments are on paper and have held through changes of government in multiple countries.”

Ipas, in its briefing, emphasizes that there is still a way to go before the core group’s establishment and cautions advocates to “avoid overstating [its] legitimacy and power.”

However, Sjödin warns that the plans, and the danger they present, must be taken seriously.

“Currently, we are seeing quite an extensive and horrendous backlash against LGBTQ+ people,” she says. “What they potentially want to do here is to actually make inclusion of everyone more difficult.”

Written by Uncloseted MEdia

President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Friday that waived sweeping US sanctions and tariffs targeting Russia’s energy revenues, marking a new low in Washington’s ties with war-torn Ukraine. The move came as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy urged EU leaders to keep financing Kyiv’s fight with nearly $80 billion more next year, insisting he […]

A dreaded EU windfall tax is now just a matter of time