Articles for Morocco

Alkarama sent an urgent appeal to the Committee against Torture on 11 August 2014, asking the Committee to take interim measures to ensure that Morocco temporarily blocks the extradition process of Egyptian citizen, Sayed Omar Salem Omar, a senior member of the Freedom and Justice Party, the political wing of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, whose members have been subject to a bloody crackdown by the Egyptian authorities for over a year.

On 17 July 2014, Alkarama sent an urgent appeal to the UN Special Rapporteur on the Promotion and Protection of the Right to Freedom of Opinion and Expression to call on the Moroccan authorities to cease all acts of judicial and administrative harassment against Mahmoud El Haissan immediately. Saharawi channel Rasd TV journalist, El Haissan was arrested on 4 July and arbitrarily detained in the local prison of Al Akhal in El Aaiun.

Abdelkader_Haloui
29-year old human rights activist, Abdelkader Haloui was arrested on 28 May 2013 at around 2am by police officers following an altercation with a guard at Zlat Hotel, in Fes.
Driss Sedraoui, the 37-year-old president of the Moroccan League for Citizenship and Human Rights, was arrested for having attended and given his support to a protest against unemployment on 19 December 2012. He expressed his disapproval following the violent intervention of the police.
The next day, 20 December 2012, Driss Sedraoui was arrested in the afternoon in front of the Parliament and then taken to the central police station of Rabat by officers of the security services.
The UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, alerted to the case of Mohamed Hajib by Alkarama, declared his detention to be arbitrary, as his "conviction was based on a confession obtained under torture", and calls upon the Moroccan Government to "release him immediately and award him appropriate compensation".
Mohamed Hajib (aged 31), of German and Moroccan nationality, is currently detained in Tiflet prison, having been arrested on 17 February 2010 at Casablanca airport on his way back from Frankfurt.
Last November 1, Kima El Berhihi, the fiancée of a human rights defender, was arrested, tortured, and released by the Moroccan intelligence services in Larache in northern Morocco. Once released, she filed a complaint with the nearest police station despite having been threatened with a further arrest by the intelligence services officials. The police have refused to register her complaint.
Karima El Berhihi left her home at around ten in the morning on the day in question.
In November 2011, the UN Committee against Torture reviewed Morocco, and requested it provide information about several urgent issues that needed to be addressed within one year.
"Your protector Mendez has gone now...," threatened the governor of Tiflet Prison... Less than a week after the end of the UN Special Rapporteur's - Juan E. Mendez - official visit to Morocco, a high ranking prison official threatened inmates at Tiflet Prison. While Mr Mendez's visit appeared to be a promising sign that Morocco is willing to cooperate with the UN, Alkarama is alarmed by these words uttered by such a high-ranking official.
Mr Juan E. Mendez, UN Special Rapporteur on torture, was in Morocco from 14 to the 22 September 2012.
The Special Rapporteur of the United Nations on Torture, Mr. Juan E. Méndez, will visit Morocco from 14-22 September 2012. Alkarama was pleased to see Morocco invite the UN expert to visit the country, in particular to visit places of detention and to hold a dialogue with the authorities regarding these locations.
Alkarama expresses serious concern about the state of Abdessamad Bettar's health. Bettar is now hospitalized in the intensive care unit at Mohamed V hospital in Safi after enduring 80 days of hunger strike.