Conference in Rabat looks into political detention literature
Morocco, Politics, 5/24/2004

Rabat is hosting this May 21-22 a conference on "literature of political detention" held by the Moroccan equity and reconciliation commission (IER) set up last January to seek out-of-court settlement of past human rights abuses.

Chairman of the commission, Driss Benzekri, explained at the opening session that the conference is meant to pay tribute to these artists-political prisoners who contributed in a delicate period of Moroccan history through their writings and arts to spreading a culture of reconciliation.

A historian specialist in Moroccan politics who has compiled several documents, testimonies, biographies and administrative notes on political detention in Morocco cited several books written by political prisoners describing them as "rich, shocking and frightening accounts on the taboos that marked this period."

For another participant "opening and studying these files of the past is at the same time an implicit, public, official and popular acknowledgment of these events." He said it is necessary to study all the genres of this literature which encompass correspondences, studies, documents of political hearings, police minutes, medical reports and the attorneys correspondences and jurisprudence.

The conference is part of a series of events scheduled by the equity and reconciliation commission which plans to look into other related themes including "violence and the state," "the concept of truth," "the concept of reconciliation" and "bodies of truth and reconciliation worldwide."

Since its creation last January, the IER has received about 20,000 compensation and repair requests. According to its chairman, the body will cover the period extending between Morocco's independence in 1956 till 1999 when its predecessor, the independent arbitration commission, was set up. Its mandate includes massive and/or serious human rights abuses, investigations and fact-finding missions in order to identify the categories, seriousness and massive and/or systematic abuses of human rights.

Previous Stories:
  Moroccan Human Rights Association Welcomes Creation of Equity and Reconciliation Commission   (4/28/2004)
  Morocco's Islamic party is far cry from extremism, party leader   (4/22/2004)
  Commission receives 20,000 compensation claims for past human rights abuses   (4/17/2004)

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