Former woman detainee says: 'the price to pay for the love of the motherland is extremely high'

"The price to pay for the love of the motherland is extremely high and only the people whose homes were violated by night visitors know that," said Mrs Touria Tanani, arrested in 1984 for contribution to the creation in Fkih Bensaleh, Central Morocco, of a branch of the "Organisation de l'Action democratique populaire" (OADP).

Speaking Sunday at the 5th public hearing held in Khenifra, Central Morocco, by the justice and reconciliation commission (IER), in charge of examining past human rights violations, Tanani said she was visited in the night of January 27, 1984, by "night visitors" who tortured her in front of her brothers before she was put in a horrible cell for cross-examining.

She told of the torture she was inflicted for 17 days when in preventive detention, adding the torturer did not make distinction between men and women. She was carried to hospital after she fainted under torture.

Tanani was afterwards, according to her, interrogated for her cultural, political and union activities and that even her sister was arrested to testify against her. She said she was then sentenced to two years of prison and sent to Beni Mellal prison, adding her sufferings continued even after her release when her movements were restricted and her family harassed.