'Our torturers did not respect our woman nature', says former female detainee

Former political detainee, Maria Zouini, who was arrested in 1977 for belonging to a Left Marxist group, affirmed Wednesday her torturers "did not respect her as a woman," adding that the period of her detention was "arbitrary."

Mrs. Zouini, who was testifying before the Justice and reconciliation Commission which started on Tuesday the hearings of victims of past human rights abuses in Morocco, recounted the different mistreatments she underwent in 1977 in several secret centers of detention. She said the other five women who were arrested at the same time were given "male names" to further humiliate them. She also revealed being victim of "sexual harassment."

The testimony of Maria Zouini, born on April 22, 1955 in Marrakech, focused on the circumstances of her first arrest in 1977 in front of the house of her family in Marrakech. The arrest was part of a crack down campaign by authorities on leftist activists in the university campuses. She was arrested along with her brother Rachid by plainclothes policemen.

The Marxist movement to which she belonged appeared towards the end of the Sixties and early Seventies, and was presented in the form of an alternative to the "institutional opposition " by advocating "revolution" as a means of change. This underground movement made of universities and colleges a place of popular mobilization, in particular through the students union "Union Nationale des Etudiants du Maroc" (UNEM).

After she spent one night at the police station of Jamae El Fna, in Marrakech, Mrs. Zouni said she was taken blindfolded and handcuffed to the unpopular Derb Moulay Chrif police station in Casablanca where, she said, she lived in "inhuman conditions." She spent 6 months in that station where she met other activists among whom, Latifa Jbabdi, now member of the Justice and Reconciliation Commission, and Khadija Boukhari. She was then imprisoned in the "Ghbila" prison in the same city.

Reporting the conditions of her detention and those of the other women, Mrs. Zouini denounced the lack of health care and food, noting that women were given old clothes in an attempt to exercise a "psychological pressure," on them. These women, she said, were forced to sign statements without having the right to consult them first.

In spite of her sufferings, Mrs. Zouini was well resolved to continue her studies, to realize her dream to become a doctor, a dream she could not fulfil as she was arrested.

Evoking her lawsuit on January 3, 1977, Mrs. Zouini affirmed that this lawsuit was sullied with "irregularities." Nine days later, she started a hunger strike along with other detainees (from January 12 to February 5 of the same year). She recalled that one of her companions, Saida Mnebhi died on December 12, 1977.

Mrs. Zouini was then taken along with others, under military escort, to the prison of Meknés, where she spent one year before being released.

Maria underlined in conclusion that women also underwent their share of sufferings, like their fellow men, hoping to see such "acts and abuses" overcome in the future.

The hearings will resume early January 2005, in other cities such as Casablanca, Khénifra, Al Hoceima, Tan Tan, Smara, Errachidia, Figuig, Fès and Tetouan.