Morocco: Khalid Etefia arrested after trying to visit his wife in jail
At 3am on 8 February 2010, Khalid Etefia was arrested in his hotel room in Rabat. On the same day, he was brought before the investigating judge of Rabat's Court of Appeals and sent to Salé prison. The couple, although detained inside the same prison, has been unable to see each other.
Khalid Etefia, 34, is a Franco-Moroccan biologist working at the University Pierre and Marie Curie (Paris VI) in Paris was trying to visit his wife who is accused of "funding terrorism".
Since the adoption of Resolution 1373 by the Security Council on 28 September 2001, many countries, including Morocco, used the Resolution as a means to enforce precarious law under the pretext of fulfilling their obligations to "combat terrorism". This has had serious implications for individual freedoms and fundamental rights of citizens.
On 3 May 2010, Alkarama sent their cases to the Special Rapporteur on the protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms while countering terrorism, asking him to intervene with the Moroccan authorities due to severity of the couples' situation.
It has been alleged that Khalid Etefia and his wife have a joint bank account, the same account that Doha Aboutabit used to send money to her brother, without ever knowing how the money was to be spent. She was then charged for "sponsoring terrorism". According to statements given by the Moroccan authorities, his brother would travel to Iraq where he would later died in 2008.
The Moroccan authorities have enacted Law No. 03-03 in the fight against terrorism, which came into force on 5 June 2003 and is now incorporated in the new Criminal Procedure Code. The law comes in the aftermath of the Casablanca suicide bombings on 16 May 2003, allegedly carried out by members of Salafia Jihadia group from Sidi Moumen, a poor suburb of Casablanca.
This new law significantly diminishes the protection of human rights, particularly in relation to persons suspected of terrorism by expanding the capacity of security services and judicial authorities.
Following her arrest in early December 2009, Doha Aboutabit was held in police custody for 12 days without contact with the outside world and underwent severe psychological torture. Such maltreatment is clear evidence of an abuse of authority under the pretext of the fight against terrorism.
These types of practices by the security services also demonstrates that they are ignoring the actual provisions of the antiterrorism law by ignoring the minimum guarantees of access to legal counsel.
Resolution 64/168 of the United Nations General Assembly adopted 18 December 2009 explicitly recalls that States must "...ensure that no form of deprivation of liberty places a detained person
outside the protection of the law, and to respect the safeguards concerning the
liberty, security and dignity of the person, in accordance with international law,
including international human rights and humanitarian law."