Authors of human rights violations should be excluded from decision-making centers, victim
Morocco, Politics, 3/17/2005

Ms. Widad El Bouab, a victim of human rights abuses committed between 1956 and 1999, said at the public hearing session held on Wednesday in Marrakech, authors of human rights violations should be excluded from decision-making centers and called the state to apologize for these practices.

El Bouab, who was arrested in 1977 in Marrakech and transferred to the Derb Moulay Cherif secret detention center for six months as part of the repression against the student movement in the 70's, said she was arrested for her activism for a better future. She also recounted the various forms of physical and moral torture she was subjected to.

The former political detainee, who was part of the so-called group of 105 was transferred from one prison to another. She praised the action of the Justice and Reconciliation Commission (IER), set up in 2004 to seek out-of-court settlement to past human rights violations, but insisted on the need to exclude authors of these breaches from decision-making and security circles and argued that reconciliation should not be limited to the political aspect but should also encompass economic, social and cultural aspects.

El Bouab also narrated the particular torture practiced against women such as rape threats and the absence of female prison guards, which is "contrary to all religious and moral ethics." Although she was acquitted by the first instance court of Safi, persecution continued as she was denied a passport and banned from leaving Morocco to carry on her studies. It was only in 1995 that she was delivered a passport.

Another witness during this 6th session, Mohamed Atlas Belhaj, who was arrested in 1963 in Marrakech and fell into coma for 13 days as a result of the harsh torture, said he stood trial together with other militants from the National Union of Popular Forces for "undermining internal security."

The former prisoner, who was a member of the resistance and liberation army (against French occupation) was also shunted around one prison to another before being sentenced in 1968 by a military court to capital punishment which was reduced in 1977 to 20 years in prison and released in 1983 after serving all of his prison sentence, including nine years in the death row.

His arrest was due to his party's stance concerning the 1962 constitution and the legislative elections.

Atik Saleh, a 73-year old victim, insisted that Morocco has to be spared similar breaches and prayed God to forgive the torturers.

He narrated how he was kidnapped in 1956 and sequestered together with 17 members of the "Black crescent" organization in a farm owned by a French army captain near Marrakech. Some of his inmates were executed in the same farm and other were transferred to a prison in Marrakech where they spent 6 months, before being taken again to the prison of Kenitra for six other months. He also recounts that he was transferred from prisons in Rabat, Casablanca and Marrakech. He was then acquitted, he narrates, but he still wonders on the reasons that led to his arrest and to facing such dastardly practices.

For Abderrahman Choujar who says he was arrested for his patriotism and faith in the Moroccans' rights to take part in the construction of post-independence Morocco, the services that incarcerated him together with his companions for years are only "gangs that operated illegally and who did not care a hang of the fate, interests, dignity and future of Moroccans."

He said he was arrested in 1963 in Safi as he was taking part in the electoral campaign of a UNFP candidate, tortured and condemned to a one-year suspended term.

Choujar, a janitor at the teachers school, says he was persecuted day and night because he was a militant in the UNFP which called for boycotting the referendum on the 1962 constitution. In 1965, fearing to be kidnapped, he moved to Casablanca where things got worse because of the events linked to the case of Cheikh al Arab, after which he decided to move to Azilal, in southern Morocco.

Even his family, he went on, was not spared. His aged and sick father was beaten, humiliated and threatened, which forced him to leave Morocco for Algeria as a political refugee for two years before being compelled to seek refuge in Syria. He came back clandestinely to Morocco where he was arrested in 1969, relocated from one prison to another and tortured.

In June 1971, he was sentenced together with 191 other prisoners to 20 years in prison, out of which he served 8 years before being released. He recounts that in prison, torture also consisted in stinking smells, hunger and, foremost, the wailing of other inmates.

He also said the judgments were unfair as the magistrate came to the court with a list of sentences that he handed out.

Some human rights breaches victims are dead and relatives were also given a chance to tell of their own sufferings and those of their dear ones. Such was the case of Zahra Lazrak, mother of Mohamed Grina, who died under torture. She says her son was subjected to electric shocks and to suffocation by floorcloth.

She said her son was a member of "Chabiba Ittihadia" (youth section of the Socialist Union of Popular Forces) and was wanted by the police after his participation in a march of solidarity with the Palestinian people. She also narrates how herself and other members of the family were persecuted and even her 12-year old daughter was arrested and ill-treated.

The police searched the house, damaging furniture and insulting the family. She was later on informed by the USFP that her son was arrested

At the court, she narrates that her son appeared in a critical health status with bruises on his face. He was denied the right to be examined by a doctor and the court decided to hold in-camera session while herself fainted after being assaulted by the police.

When she went to visit her son in the prison, she was told that he was taken to hospital and was finally allowed to visit him.

When Mohamed Grina died in April 1979, she was barred from seeing the corpse of her son. Mohamed's death, she said, ruined her life, caused her several chronic diseases and affected the material situation of the family which had pinned all their hopes on Mohamed Grina.

The IER, which is holding the public hearing sessions says it has received 5,000 files of human rights violations in the region, accounting for a quarter of all the applications received nationwide.

Previous Stories:
  ICRC briefed on case of Moroccan POWs detained in southern Algeria   (3/16/2005)
  Morocco's appeal for release of Moroccans in Algeria triggers undiplomatic response from Algeria   (3/16/2005)
  Morocco's reforms confer credibility to its advanced status with the EU, ambassador   (3/16/2005)

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