The Canary Coalition councilor in the San Bartolomé City Council, Juan Antonio de la Hoz, has denounced the "brutality" used on Monday night by the Civil Guard, when they proceeded to evict Sahrawi activist Aminatou Haidar from the Lanzarote airport at 12:00 AM. According to his testimony, they were expelled from the premises "with kicks and shoves."
"What I saw last night seems to me of incredible brutality and excess," says De la Hoz, who accompanied Haidar to leave the facility, as he must do every night at 12:00 AM, when the airport closes its doors. According to him, an agreement had been sought with Aena to allow the Sahrawi activist and "two or three more people" to spend the night inside the premises. Given Aena's refusal, he assures that they were preparing to leave the facility when the Civil Guard arrived.
"15 or 20 agents appeared. I have never seen such a police deployment, they were hooded. We were not kindly invited to leave the premises, but with shoves and kicks," criticizes this councilor of the Canary Coalition. According to his statement, a television cameraman "almost had his arm broken", while a resident of Lanzarote "was carried away" and a 3-year-old Sahrawi girl "was kicked out as if she were a ball."
Faced with these events, De la Hoz shows his indignation. "As a public official of this island and councilor of a city council of the Spanish State, I feel ashamed of the treatment that is being given to a Sahrawi woman, who is not here of her own free will, but has been kidnapped and is not allowed to return to her home," he states.
Aena speaks out
Aena's version differs greatly from De la Hoz's testimony. Sources from the public company affirm that the Civil Guard Commander asked Aminatou Haidar and her companions "three times" to leave the terminal. "On the third time, the riot police entered", they indicate.
From Aena they cannot confirm if these events are true, since they only know what happened "inside the facility". "We don't know what happened outside", they emphasize.
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