Aicha Ouharfou: My sister died in a detention center

Former detainee, Aicha Ouharfou, gave Wednesday a moving testimony about her arrest, along with her family members, in Goulmima (southern-central Morocco) following the events of March 1973, deploring that her sister died in a secret detention center.

Speaking at the 4th session of public hearings into human rights violations committed from 1956 to 1999, Aicha was so moved that she had to stop several times while telling the suffering of her family. A psychologist interfered more than once to help her calm down.

The former detainee recounted how she was arrested in March 1973 with her mother, sister, and brothers, saying she was successively tortured during her detention. She was beaten, and threatened of deprivation of food and sleep, and of physical liquidation.

Aicha said she still carries physical and psychological scars from that period, notably because the death of her sister, Fatima, and her father, Mouh Oumouha Ouharfou, who was executed in 1974.

Aicha hoped at the end of her testimony that such practices will be given up forever.