Brahim Dahane (; born 1965) is a Sahrawi human rights activist and president of the Sahrawi Association of Victims of Grave Human Rights Violations Committed by the Moroccan State. Biography Born in 1965 in El Aaiun, in the part of Western Sahara controlled by Morocco, where he operated an Internet café which he had to close due to Moroccan government harassment. 1987–1991 disappearance At the age of 22, in 1987 he participated in the demonstrations to welcome the United Nations' MINURSO mission to El Aaiun. After the demonstrations, he was abducted by Moroccan security forces and held in secret detention centres for four years, when he was released along with approximately 300 other Sahrawi who had been subject to forced disappearance. According to Amnesty International, In 1994, Dahane and three colleagues began to explore filing a case against Morocco for human rights violations. The committee for the Per Anger Prize described the event as "the first step towards organising and coordinating human rights activists in Western Sahara." 2005–2006 detention On 7 May 2005, he founded the ASVDH, and became its first president. After protesting police brutality during the anti-occupation protests that broke out in El Aaiun in May 2005, Dahane was detained on 30 October 2005 by Moroccan security personnel. For two days, he was questioned on his relations with international human rights associations and foreign diplomats. He was later charged with "belonging to an illegal organization", namely ASVDH. This was condemned by Amnesty International, and Human Rights Watch, both of which campaigned for Dahane's release. As part of a general royal pardon, Dahane and other members of ASVDH were set free on 22 April 2006. 2009–11 imprisonment On 8 October 2009, Dahane was arrested with other six Sahrawi human rights activists in the Casablanca Airport, when they returned from visiting family members in the Sahrawi refugee camps in Tindouf, Algeria. The Moroccan authorities accused them of "harming state security", and transferred the case to a military court. Agence Maghreb Arab Presse, Morocco's state-owned news agency, stated that the defendants "would have been in contact with parties hostile to Morocco, and perpetrate an attack against the best interests of the nation". The seven, widely known as the "Casablanca 7" were incarcerated in Salé. In March 2010, he and five of the other activists began a month-long hunger strike in protest of being imprisoned without trial, causing doctors to express concern