Articles for Morocco

In its contribution to the Sub-Committee of Accreditation (SCA) of the International Coordinating Committee of National Institutions for the Promotions and Protection of Human Rights (ICC) – in view of the ICC's review of the Moroccan national human rights institution, the National Human Rights Council (CNDH), due in November 2015 – Alkarama has recommended the down

On 15 July 2015, Alkarama sent a communication to the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention (WGAD) concerning the case of a 23-year-old salesman arrested in 2004 and sentenced to 15 years in prison on the sole basis of confessions obtained under torture and following an unfair trial. Hamo Hassani is still currently held it the prison of Tiflet, 50 km east of Rabat.

Brutal arrest and incommunicado detention of Hamo Hassani

On 30 June 2015, Alkarama sent a communication to the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the independence of judges and lawyers (SR IJL), Gabriela Knaul, concerning the case of Judge Mohamed Anbar, unfairly removed from office in October 2014 after having suffered both harassment and persecution by the police while he was still President of the Chamber at the Court of Cassation of Rabat, the highest court of the country.

On 17 June 2015, Alkarama urgently informed the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture (SRT) of the current situation of Abdessamad Bettar, who was tortured and transferred to solitary confinement in the punishment block of the prison of Safi, where he is being held for having begun a hunger strike and demanded his release.

On 23 May 2015, Alkarama sent an urgent appeal to the UN Committee Against Torture (CAT) asking it to urgently intervene with the Morocco authorities so they take interim measures to stop the extradition to Saudi Arabia of Abdul Rahman Alhaj Ali – a Syrian asylum seeker who had fled persecutions in his country in 2014 to take refuge in Morocco with his wife and his children – based on a 2007 arrest warrant which had already been executed and is no longer justified.

On 24 November 2014, on the eve of the second Global Human Rights Forum held in Marrakech between 27 and 30 November 2014, Morocco ratified the Optional Protocol to the Convention Against Torture (OPCAT), giving hope to see the country on the road to a genuine implementation of the fundamental rights of persons deprived of liberty.

On 30 October 2014, Alkarama sent a communication to the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention (WGAD) regarding the case of two brothers, Mohammed and Kamal Al Shatbi, arbitrarily deprived of their freedom since their respective arrests without warrant on 25 and 27 September 2002.

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.