Former political detainees ask for apology

Several former Moroccan political detainees have asked for an apology and financial compensation for the sufferings they had endured under arrest, the Moroccan press reported on Tuesday.

This came at a meeting held recently in Casablanca.

According to the press, some asked for a symbolic dirham as a compensation while others insisted on "their inalienable right to commensurate compensation."

The meeting, that was attended by human rights and civil society activists, lauded as "a positive step" the initiative of King Mohammed VI to set up an arbitration body and called "to publish the names of those accountable for torture and bring them to justice."

King Mohammed VI announced last August the creation of an independent arbitration body "to set compensations for material and moral harm caused to the persons who were victim of forced disappearance or arbitrary arrest or to their families."

King Mohammed VI's father, late King Hassan II, had agreed last April to pay compensations to the victims of forced disappearance or to their families.