RABAT, Morocco (AP) — Ouafa Charaf was heading home from a solidarity sit-in with a group of laid off workers in the northern port city of Tangiers, she says, when a small white van pulled up and two men forced her into the back and blindfolded her.

“They started to hit me and insult me and then one of them threatened to make me disappear,” the 26-year-old political activist told The Associated Press by telephone. “They ridiculed me for wanting to change the situation in my country.” She was later dumped out in the country some eight miles (12 kilometers) from her home.