Torture by Police, Forced Disappearance & Other Ill Treatment In the early years of the 21st Century, 2000 to
2025 gvnet.com/torture/Morocco.htm
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CAUTION: The following links
have been culled from the web to illuminate the situation in Morocco. Some of these links may lead to websites
that present allegations that are unsubstantiated or even false. No
attempt has been made to validate their authenticity or to verify their content. HOW TO USE THIS WEBPAGE Students If you are looking
for material to use in a term-paper, you are advised to scan the postings on
this page and others to see which aspects of Torture by Authorities are of
particular interest to you. You might
be interested in exploring the moral justification for inflicting pain or
inhumane or degrading treatment or punishment in order to obtain critical
information that may save countless lives, or to elicit a confession for a
criminal act, or to punish someone to teach him a lesson outside of the
courtroom. Perhaps your paper might
focus on some of the methods of torture, like fear, extreme temperatures,
starvation, thirst, sleep deprivation, suffocation, or immersion in freezing
water. On the other hand, you might
choose to write about the people acting in an official capacity who
perpetrate such cruelty. There is a
lot to the subject of Torture by Authorities.
Scan other countries as well as this one. Draw comparisons between activity in
adjacent countries and/or regions.
Meanwhile, check out some of the Term-Paper resources
that are available on-line. ***
ARCHIVES *** 2020 Country
Reports on Human Rights Practices: Morocco U.S. Dept of State Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and
Labor, 30 March 2021 www.state.gov/reports/2020-country-reports-on-human-rights-practices/morocco/
[accessed 29 July
2021] TORTURE AND OTHER
CRUEL, INHUMAN, OR DEGRADING TREATMENT OR PUNISHMENT Reports of torture
have declined over the last several years, although Moroccan government
institutions and NGOs continued to receive reports about the mistreatment of
individuals in official custody. Reports of mistreatment occurred most
frequently in pretrial detention. There were also accusations that security
officials subjected Western Sahara proindependence
protesters to degrading treatment during or following demonstrations or
protests calling for the release of alleged political prisoners. ARREST PROCEDURES
AND TREATMENT OF DETAINEES According to media,
the Marrakech branch of the auxiliary forces suspended two officers after
they appeared in a video violently arresting a suspect on May 6. Pretrial Detention:
Although the government claimed that authorities generally brought accused
persons to trial within two months, prosecutors may request as many as five
additional two-month extensions of pretrial detention. Pretrial detentions
can last as long as one year. Government officials attributed delays to the
large backlog of cases in the justice system. The government stated that a
variety of factors contributed to this backlog, including a lack of resources
devoted to the justice system, both human and infrastructure; the lack of
plea bargaining as an option for prosecutors, lengthening the amount of time
to process cases on average; the rare use of mediation and other out-of-court
settlement mechanisms allowed by law; and the absence of legal authority for
alternative sentencing. The government reported that, as of May,
approximately 6.5 percent of detainees were in pretrial detention awaiting
their first trial. In some cases detainees received a sentence shorter than
the time they spent in pretrial detention, particularly for misdemeanors. Freedom House
Country Report 2020 Edition freedomhouse.org/country/morocco/freedom-world/2020 [accessed 15 May
2020] F3. IS THERE PROTECTION FROM THE ILLEGITIMATE
USE OF PHYSICAL FORCE AND FREEDOM FROM WAR AND INSURGENCIES? Cases of excessive
force by police and torture in custody continue to occur. A number of the
protesters detained in recent years have reported being beaten and injured
during arrest, and some have been subjected to prolonged solitary confinement
while awaiting trial. Prisons often suffer from overcrowding. Moroccan
police arrest and torture disabled minor Sahara Press Service
SPS, El Aaiun (Occupied Territories), 7 May 2016 www.spsrasd.info/news/en/articles/2016/05/07/1553.html [accessed 14 August
2016] Moroccan police
arrested and tortured Thursday disabled Saharawi minor, according to the
Ministry of the Occupied Territories and Community Abroad. The Moroccan forces
beat up last night minor Jalil Eabeilil
who is disabled, said the same sources. The Saharawi minor had
been beaten by Moroccan settlers in a general avenue simply for touching a
motorcycle exposed to sale in the street. Deputy
Prosecutor Decorated for Denouncing Torture Morocco World News,
Rabat, 26 May 2016 www.moroccoworldnews.com/2016/05/187509/morocco-deputy-prosecutor-decorated-for-denouncing-torture/ [accessed 14 August
2015] Abdelfattah Sabri, Deputy Public Prosecutor for the court of Fez, was
decorated for his courage to denounce torture at a police station in Fez. According to EFE, Abdellatif Sabri had discovered
objects of torture in a surprise visit to the police station of Fez. Signs of
torture, violence and physical abuse were also discovered on the faces and
bodies of detainees held in the same police station. Right after the
incident, Abdellatif Sabri
decided to open an investigation into the matter to pinpoint the
perpetrators. Amnesty
International warns over torture practice in Morocco Paul Schemm, The Associated Press AP, Rabat, Morocco, 19 May
2015 www.voanews.com/content/amnesty-documents-torture-allegations-in-morocco/2777172.html [accessed 14 August
2015] Moroccan
authorities still use torture widely despite a ban on the practice, the
Amnesty International rights group said in a report Tuesday documenting the
abuse. Despite the ban and
statements against torture by King Mohammed VI, law enforcement authorities
still abuse protesters, rape detainees with objects and beat confessions out
of suspects, it said, detailing 173 cases of abuse and torture since 2010. Those accusing the
police of torture are now being prosecuted for slander and defamation to
discourage them from speaking out, the report said. Since 2014, eight
people have been charged for allegedly giving false allegations of torture,
including activist Ouafa Charaf, who was sentenced to a year in prison in
August for accusing the police of torture. Her sentence was doubled in
October when she appealed. Human
Rights Watch World Report 2015 - Events of 2014 Human Rights Watch,
29 January 2015 www.hrw.org/world-report/2015/...
or www.hrw.org/sites/default/files/wr2015_web.pdf [accessed 18 March
2015] MOROCCO POLICE CONDUCT,
TORTURE, AND THE CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEM - After visiting Morocco and Western
Sahara in December 2013, the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary
Detention (WGAD) concluded, “The Moroccan criminal judicial system relies
heavily on confessions as the main evidence to support conviction. Complaints
received by the Working Group indicate the use of torture by State officials
to obtain evidence or confessions during initial questioning … Courts and
prosecutors do not comply with their obligation to initiate an ex officio
investigation whenever there are reasonable grounds to believe that a
confession has been obtained through the use of torture and ill-treatment.” The
WGAD said authorities had allowed it to visit the places of detention it had
requested, and to interview detainees of its choice in private. Activists jailed
for reporting torture must be released immediately Amnesty
International, Issue: Activists Torture And Ill-treatment; Country: Morocco;
Region: Middle East And North Africa; Campaigns: Stop Torture 14 August 2014 www.amnesty.org/en/news/morocco-activists-jailed-reporting-torture-must-be-released-immediately-2014-08-14 [accessed 15
September 2014] [accessed 28 August
2016] Human rights and
political activist Wafae Charaf was sentenced to a year in prison and a 1000
MAD fine (approximately USD 120) on Tuesday for allegedly falsely reporting
being abducted and tortured by unknown persons in April this year. The court also
ordered her to pay 50,000 MAD (approximately USD 6,000) in compensation to
Morocco’s police force for slander, although she did not accuse them. SECOND CONVICTION - On 23 July 2014,
22-year old Oussama Housne, also a member of AMDH in Casablanca, was
sentenced to three years’ imprisonment for an alleged false torture report
and slander. He was ordered to pay 100,000 MAD (approximately USD 12,000) in
compensation to Morocco’s police force for slander. He is currently detained
in Oukacha Local Prison in Casablanca. He had reported
being abducted and tortured by unknown individuals as he was leaving a
protest in solidarity with detained activists on 2 May 2014. He said the men
burned him with a heated metal rod and raped him with their fingers. Burned, Beaten, and
Electrocuted: One Survivor’s Shocking Story of Torture in Morocco Amnesty
International, 21 Aug 2014 [accessed 15
September 2014] In December 2010, Ali
Aarrass, a Belgian-Moroccan coffee shop owner was extradited from Spain to
Morocco, where Moroccan intelligence held him in a secret prison for 12 days
in Témara, near the capital city of Rabat. Ali described the anguish
his muscles and joints experienced while he was suspended from his wrists for
extended periods of time, the searing pain of feeling his flesh being burned
by cigarettes, enduring excruciating electric shocks to his testicles, having
his head held under water until he fainted, being raped with a glass bottle,
and having the soles of his feet beaten raw. He remained in the secret
holding facility until he signed a “confession” pre-written for him in Arabic
– a language he does not speak. Ali Aarrass with his family (Photo Credit:
Private). Ali Aarrass with his family (Photo Credit: Private). Ali was then
formally arrested by the Moroccan authorities and transferred to Salé II
prison. The other inmates expressed shock at the scars of torture on Ali’s body,
as well as his traumatized state of mind when he arrived. Moroccan court
sentences activist to prison, rejecting claims of torture by police The Associated Press
AP, Rabat, 12 August 2014 [accessed 12 August
2014] A Moroccan court
has sentenced a human rights activist convicted of falsely claiming she was
tortured by police to one year in prison.
Ouafa Charaf was also fined 4,500 euros ($6,000) by the court Tuesday,
the second time in recent weeks that a human rights activist was convicted on
similar charges. Charaf couldn't
prove her claims of police involvement, which authorities denied. Amnesty urges
Morocco to end 'total impunity' for torture Agence France-Presse
AFP, 13 May 2014 www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/afp/140513/amnesty-urges-morocco-end-total-impunity-torture-0 [accessed 14 May
2014] [accessed 28 August
2016] Amnesty
International on Tuesday said perpetrators of torture enjoy almost
"total impunity" in Morocco and Western Sahara, calling for an end
to the practise, while acknowledging that it had become less frequent. It said that,
despite being explicitly criminalised since 2006 and prohibited by the new
2011 constitution, torture continues in Morocco, with perpetrators enjoying
"virtual total impunity" and judges rarely investigating reports of
torture. "The resulting climate
of impunity cancels out the dissuasive power of Morocco's anti-torture
legislation," Amnesty said. The
government rejected the charges, insisting that judicial procedures had been
strengthened, that the justice ministry was ready to investigate any claims
of torture and that new reforms were planned that would see police
interrogations recorded. But Amnesty cited
three specific cases in which detainees signed "confessions" after
being subjected to torture or other ill-treatment in police custody. One was Ali Aarass, a Belgian-Moroccan
extradited from Spain in 2010. He was jailed for 12 years on "terrorism"
charges, despite documentation that he was repeatedly tortured and claims
that his "confession," the main evidence against him, was obtained
through torture. And in Western
Sahara, one of six Sahrawis arrested during a pro-independence demonstration
last year, claims he was threatened with rape and forced to sign a
"confession" that he was prevented from reading. He and his co-defendants, who were bailed
in October after five months in pre-trial detention, risk up to 10 years in
prison, accused of violence against public officials and participating in an
armed gathering. Morocco/Western
Sahara: Investigate alleged torture of six detained Sahrawis Amnesty
International AI, 16 May 2013 www.amnesty.org/en/news/moroccowestern-sahara-investigate-alleged-torture-six-detained-sahrawis-2013-05-16 [accessed 3 Feb
2014] www.amnestyusa.org/news/news-item/moroccowestern-sahara-investigate-alleged-torture-of-six-detained-sahrawis [accessed 28 August
2016] [accessed 31 July
2017] “Reports that the Moroccan authorities
subjected these six detainees – including a child – to torture and other
ill-treatment to extract ‘confessions’ are deeply disturbing. The allegations
must be thoroughly investigated, with those responsible brought to justice,”
said Philip Luther, Director of Amnesty International’s Middle East and North
Africa Programme. Amnesty
International fears that the decision to re-arrest El Hussein Bah three days
after his release on bail was in retaliation for him speaking out about his
alleged torture. During his short
release, the 17-year-old told Amnesty International that during his initial
detention, police tortured him, threatened him with rape, and forced him to
sign papers including a “confession” which he was not allowed to read. He alleged that police officers pressed a
urine-soaked sponge against his face and pulled his trousers off before
threatening him with rape. During his interrogation, he was beaten while kept
in a position known as the “roast chicken” – where he was suspended from his
knees, with his wrists tied over his legs.
All six detainees told the investigative judge that they had been
tortured and otherwise ill-treated and that their “confessions” were
extracted under torture in police custody. El Hussein Bah reported hearing
other detainees being subjected to torture and other ill-treatment in
separate cells while in police custody, and later noticing their visible
bruising, handcuff marks and swollen joints. Moroccan Courts Use
'Dubious Confessions' Selah Hennessy,
Human Rights Watch HRW,London, 21 June 2013 www.voanews.com/content/morocco-rights-courts-trial-torture/1686738.html [accessed 22 June
2013] Courts in Morocco are
convicting defendants based on confessions that the accused say were obtained
by torture or were falsified by police, a Human Rights Watch (HRW) report
said Friday. One man told Human
Rights Watch how he had been refused access to a lawyer and was told he would
be beaten to death if he did not sign a confession. He says his body could not take any more
torture and so he told them: “If you want me just to sign, here is my
signature.” Moroccan law
criminalizes torture and prohibits courts from using statements obtained
under “violence or coercion.” But
Alrifai says the Human Rights Watch investigation shows that judges ignore
complaints made by the defendants over alleged ill treatment. “We are also seeing a judiciary, a set of
judges, that do not even question allegations given to them during the
procedures. So they just blindly follow the reports that come with the
defendants from the police stations, which are often erroneous or are
accusations extracted under torture,” Alrifai said. Morocco/Western
Sahara: Convicted Sahrawis must receive fair trials in civilian courts Amnesty
International News, 18 February 2013 www.amnesty.org/en/news/morocco-convicted-sahrawis-must-receive-fair-trial-2013-02-18 [accessed 19
February 2013] www.amnestyusa.org/news/news-item/moroccowestern-sahara-convicted-sahrawis-must-receive-fair-trials-in-civilian-courts [accessed 28 August
2016] [accessed 31 July
2017] The Moroccan
authorities must use civilian courts to give fair retrials to 25 Sahrawis and
fully investigate their allegations of torture, Amnesty International said
today after a military court handed them long prison sentences. The convictions
relate to violence during and after the Moroccan security forces’ dismantling
of the Gdim Izik protest camp in November 2010, during which 11 members of
the security forces and two Sahrawis were killed. “It is disturbing
that the authorities have also ignored the Sahrawi defendants’ allegations of
torture and coerced confessions.” The defendants have
repeatedly said they were tortured and otherwise ill-treated in detention,
and coerced into signing statements, but there have been no reports of any
official investigation into the allegations. Amnesty
International is calling for an independent investigation into the torture
allegations, and for any evidence obtained under torture or coercion to be
rejected by the court. Contested
Confessions Used to Imprison Protesters - Evidence They Assaulted Police
Allegedly Obtained by Torture Human Rights Watch,
Rabat, 17 September 2012 www.hrw.org/news/2012/09/17/morocco-contested-confessions-used-imprison-protesters [accessed 6 February
2013] A Moroccan court on
September 12, 2012, sentenced five activists of the pro-reform February 20
Movement to prison terms, and one to a suspended term, for assaulting and
insulting police officers after what may have been an unfair trial. A Casablanca court sentenced
them to up to 10 months in prison despite their claim, from the moment they
emerged from police custody, that they had been tortured into signing false
confessions, the sole evidence against them. The court refused to summon any
of the officers who claimed to have been assaulted to appear in court, and
heard no witnesses who identified the defendants as having committed any
infractions. The defendants plan to appeal. “The court sent
protesters to jail on the basis of confessions allegedly obtained under
torture, while refusing to summon the complainants to be heard in court,”
said Eric Goldstein, deputy Middle East and North Africa director at Human
Rights Watch. “Morocco can guarantee fair trials only when courts seriously
investigate allegations of coerced confessions and dismiss as evidence any
confessions the police obtained improperly.” Conclusions and
recommendations of the Committee against Torture U.N. Convention
against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or
Punishment -- Doc. CAT/C/MAR/CO/4
(2011) www1.umn.edu/humanrts/cat/observations/morocco2011.html [accessed 4 March
2013] Events involving
Western Sahara 12. The Committee
is concerned by the reports it has received regarding the alleged use by
Moroccan law enforcement officers and security personnel of practices in
Western Sahara such as arbitrary arrest and detention, incommunicado
detention, detention in secret places, torture, ill-treatment, the extraction
of confessions under torture and the excessive use of force. Secret arrests and
detention in cases involving security concerns 14. The Committee
is concerned by reports that, in cases involving terrorism, legal procedures for
arresting, questioning and holding suspects in custody are not always
followed in practice. The Committee is also concerned by information pointing
to a consistent pattern whereby suspects are arrested by plain-clothes
officers who do not clearly identify themselves, taken in for questioning and
then held in secret detention facilities, which in practice amounts to
incommunicado detention. The suspects are not officially registered and are
subjected to torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or
punishment. They are held in these conditions for weeks at a time without
being brought before a judge and without judicial supervision. Their families
are not notified of their arrest, of their movements or of their whereabouts
until such time as they are transferred to police custody in order to sign
confessions that they have made under torture. It is only then that they are
officially registered and their cases are processed through the regular
justice system on the basis of falsified dates and information (arts. 2, 11,
12, 15 and 16). Coerced confessions 17. The Committee
is concerned by the fact that, under the State party’s current system of
investigation, confessions are commonly used as evidence for purposes of
prosecution and conviction. The Committee notes with concern that convictions
in numerous criminal cases, including terrorism cases, are based on
confessions, thus creating conditions that may provide more scope for the
torture and ill-treatment of suspects (arts. 2 and 15). AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL From an old article -- URL not available Article was
published sometime prior to 2015 TORTURE AND OTHER
ILL-TREATMENT
- Torture and other ill-treatment continued to be reported, with detainees held
for interrogation by the Department of State Surveillance (DST) particularly
at risk. Following his visit in September, the UN Special Rapporteur on
torture observed that torture tended to be more prevalent when the
authorities perceived state security to be under threat. He noted that
torture allegations rarely resulted in prosecutions of alleged perpetrators. In October, the
National Human Rights Council reported that prison staff continued to commit
abuses against prisoners and that investigations were
rare. ***
EARLIER EDITIONS OF SOME OF THE ABOVE *** Freedom House
Country Report - Political Rights: 5 Civil Liberties: 4 Status: Partly Free 2009 Edition www.freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-world/2009/morocco [accessed 6 February
2013] LONG
URL ç 2009 Country Reports begin on Page 21 [accessed 13 May
2020] The judiciary is
not independent. Courts rarely make decisions that violate official policy.
The courts are also subject to government pressure and have been used as a
weapon to punish government critics. Under the recommendations that
accompanied the Equity and Reconciliation Commission’s final report in 2006,
the authorities were supposed to institute a series of legal and
institutional reforms to prevent repetition of past human rights abuses.
While the report and the overall work of the commission were bold,
substantive changes have been slow in implementation, and some critics allege
that the situation is unlikely to improve. Arbitrary arrest and torture still
occur, but they are less common than under the previous king. The security
forces are given greater leeway for abuse with detainees from Western Sahara. Human Rights
Reports » 2005 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices U.S. Dept of State Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and
Labor, March 8, 2006 www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2005/61695.htm [accessed 6 February
2013] 2009-2017.state.gov/j/drl/rls/hrrpt/2005/61695.htm [accessed 4 July
2019] TORTURE
AND OTHER CRUEL, INHUMAN, OR DEGRADING TREATMENT OR PUNISHMENT – The law
prohibits such practices, and the government denied the use of torture;
however, according to local and international human rights organizations and
lawyers, prisoners, and detainees, members of the security forces tortured or
otherwise abused detainees. The penal code stipulates sentences up to life
imprisonment for public servants who use or allow the use of violence against
others in the exercise of their official duties. By law pretrial
investigating judges must refer a detainee to an expert in forensic medicine
if asked to do so or if judges notice suspicious physical marks on a
detainee. Unlike in the past year, judges enforced this requirement according
to the Ministry of Justice. Attorneys for some
persons who were convicted under the 2003 antiterrorism law claimed that their
clients' convictions were based on signed confessions coerced under torture.
There was no indication that the government took any action in response to
claims of torture made in August 2003 at the Court of Appeal in Fez by 29
persons accused of terrorism, and judicial authorities reportedly refused to
order any medical examinations. In June 2004 AI
published a report that accused security authorities of systematic torture
and ill treatment of suspects held at the Temara
detention center. AI noted a sharp rise over the past two years in such cases
in the context of "counter terrorism" measures as well as the
failure of government authorities to investigate these reports. The
government pledged to investigate each of the alleged cases in the AI report.
The government did not provide an update on these cases. During 2003 and
2004 AI and other human rights organizations reported torture and ill
treatment during initial interrogations of prisoners, including beatings,
electric shocks, and sexual abuse. Former detainees reported that authorities
held them in secret detention and denied contact with lawyers or family. The
AI report also documented accusations of arbitrary detention and forced
confessions of detained terrorism suspects. Authorities had not
yet published a result of an investigation ordered in March 2004 by then
Minister of Human Rights Mohamed Oujjar into
whether those detained in connection with the May 2003 Casablanca explosions
had been subjected to torture and human rights violations. All material
used herein reproduced under the fair use exception of 17 USC § 107 for
noncommercial, nonprofit, and educational use. PLEASE RESPECT COPYRIGHTS OF COMPONENT
ARTICLES. Cite this
webpage as: Patt, Prof. Martin, "Torture by Police, Forced Disappearance
& Other Ill Treatment in the early years of the 21st Century-
Morocco", http://gvnet.com/torture/Morocco.htm, [accessed <date>] |
