Rights body holds parallel dialog sessions to public hearings

The Justice and Reconciliation Commission (IER) will organize as of February 15 six dialog sessions in parallel to the public hearings into past human rights violations it has been organizing since last December in different cities of the Kingdom, said Friday an IER release.

These sessions, which will continue until the end of March, are meant to associate the public opinion to a direct and mature debate on the political, intellectual and historic context of the past human rights breaches which took place between 1956 and 1999, their reasons and their repercussions on the Moroccan political scene, says the release.

The sessions, which will be presided by an IER member, will also lay the foundations for "an active thinking mode, to set up projects and action plans with a view to reinforce the rule of law, and guarantee the non-recurrence of such violations" points out the source.

National and international experts, representatives of the civil society and of political parties will take part in these sessions, said the release, announcing that these will be organized in weekly round tables to be broadcast on the Moroccan second TV channel 2M, and posted on IER website.

IER, set up in January 2004 to seek out-of-court settlement of human rights breaches, has been organizing public hearings into past human rights abuses where victims deliver their testimonies in the presence of national and international media.