Report: Political prisoner Dagja Lachgar held in solitary confinement, Zaki prison, Salé, Morocco
10/12/2009 | Reports
Report: The status of the seven Sahrawi activists detained in Zaki Prison
Part I: Situation of political prisoner Dagja Lachgar, solitary confinement, Zaki prison, Salé, Morocco
She was arrested with six human rights defenders after her return from a visit to the Sahrawi refugees’ camps and she is the only woman among the group.
According to the testimony of the detainees themselves, they were detained on the airplane ramp in the Mohammed V airport in Casablanca on Thursday October 8, 2009. They were blindfolded and placed into three civil cars amidst tight security guard inside and outside the airport before taken them to an unknown location where they were subjected to questioning for eight days in solitary confinements. They were then brought before the permanent military court in Rabat on charges of high treason and spying to foreign hostile party, to be referred to the central prison of Salé, north of Rabat.
The following day, the General Delegate of the Prison Administration, Hafiz Ben-Hachem, visited them and recommended to tightening restrictions on the group and isolating them from the outside world.
Curriculum Vitae of Ms Dagja Lachgar
Date of birth: 1957 in El-Aaiun, Western Sahara
Member of the executive office of the ASVDH
Member of CODAPSO
Subjected to enforced ‘disappearance’ between 22 December 1980 and 22 June 1991 in the following secret detention centers:
- Barracks of the Rapid Intervention PECI CIMI (8 months)
- Derb Moulay Chrif in Casablanca (6 months)
- Agdez, southern Morocco (one year)
- Qalaat Mgouna ( 8 years and 8 months )
As a result, she suffers from several physical ailments, as complications of her enforced disappearance, including arthritis, stomach problems and headaches. She also suffers psychological trauma due to the loss of her husband and her inability to bear children as a result of her prolonged disappearence.
Situation inside the prison
She was arrested on 8 October 2009 in the Casablanca Airport.
She is currently held in solitary confinement in the prison of Zaki in Salé, Morocco, under arrest No. 50016.
According to information compiled by ASVDH, the location and conditions of the detention of Ms Dagja Lachgar in the heavily guarded prison does not meet requirements set forth for the minimum standard rules for the Treatment of Prisoners in the texts of international covenants on human rights, as well as the provisions under Moroccan laws governing the prisons (98.32), which would ensure the maintenance of the lives of inmates and their human dignity. These conditions violate her rights and pose a grave danger to the life and physical integrity of Ms Dagja Lachgar.
Cell
Ms Dagja Lachgar lives in solitary confinement in isolation from other detainees as well as the outside world. These rooms are usually allocated to punish prisoners and so lack to the most basic living conditions; it is very dirty, it lacks ventilation inside, in addition to the scarcity of sunlight.
The cell is dirty and has a foul oder; it is infested with fungus and insects.
The prison administration, imposing a heavily guard on Ms Lachgar, incites common prisoners to scream and kick the door while she is sleeping, provoking her, which prompts her to respond in hysterical manner. The guards also physically and psychologially attack her during their breaks.
She has been told false information about her family, such as her sister being imprisoned (as actually happened to the sister of Mr. Brahim Dahane).
She is also prohibited from contacting the outside world and has no radio; she is barred from access to newspapers and books.
She is not allowed to interact with other prisoners as well, so that her isolation from the outside world is almost total.
The right of nutrition
The Paragraph 20 of the Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners provides that:
‘Every prisoner shall be provided by the administration at the usual hours with food of nutritional value adequate for health and strength, of wholesome quality and well prepared and served.’
Mrs. Lachgar has been unable to eat what her family brings her, including food and drink, as result of confiscation and theft.
The prison administration has not provided her even a single meal since her arrest with her six companions.
The right to health care
‘Every human being has the right to be in the best health without distinction of race, religion, political belief’
Ms Lachgar suffers from several diseases from her enforced disappearance, made worse because of the dire living conditions in her solitary confinement cell in the Zaki prison of Salé.
She is currently suffering from severe pain in her head, her psychological state is very degraded due to inhuman, cruel treatment from the prison administration in a systematic and racist manner.
The administration has also prevented her from exercising her right to treatment and to visit a doctor.
Isolation from the outside world
Ensuring the right of prisoners and other detainees to receive visits and communication with the outside world is an important and necessary principle, as prisoners and detainees in general will return to the community once again. Therefore it must rehabilitate them socially as ordinary citizens. Therefore visits and contacts with the outside world is a necessary part of the rehabilitation process.
In contrast to the above, Ms Lachgar suffers from almost complete isolation from the outside world. She is forbidden to use the phones and does not have a radio, TV, newspapers and books.
The right to visits
The prison administration allows Ms Lachgar’s family only visit one a week but in a very difficult circumstances, as the family lives in El-Aaiun, Western Sahara, more than 1200 km away. The cost of travel alone, nearly 5000 dirhams, not to mention housing and other needs, has forced her family to travel only once a month.
Visits require her family to start at the permanent military court in Rabat, to obtain permission to visit from the investigating judge. Then they go to the prison where they must wait before the gate of the prison for long hours until the prison administration finishes with the families of common prisoners, and before the end of the allotted time for the visit. The prison administration often deals with them in a racist manner, subjecting them to strict inspection, accompanied by harassment.
Also, her family is afraid of fabricated charges and being subjected to fines and imprisonment, as happened to the sister of Brahim Dahan, one of the detained among the seven .
The family not allowed to meet Ms Lachgar except for several minutes; she is always accompanied by three guards and were separated by two windows.
According to family testimonies, one of the guards who accompany them monitors their conversations in order to scare and intimidate them.
Testimony of a member of her family
On Monday 23 November 2009, we reached the headquarters of the permanent military court in Rabat, and we followed the rule established by the coroner’s request to permit us visiting our daughter from the investigating judge of the Court.
On Wednesday we visited Edegja that’s the only day devoted to visit women in prison.
We arrived to the prison gate at one o’clock in local time; we were inside a queue for almost two and a half hours. After that we went into the prison through the door devoted to visitors, and here began the procrastination, where we were asked to wait at the next to a door near a sub-administration. We gave our documentation to the Administrative Officer which he took them and left till 16:05. He came back, accompanied by a privacy guardian, to ask us to accompany her to another place. We have then been subject to a strict inspection including what we carry individually. Then she asked us to accompany her to another door, we entered a visiting room, which was a room with metal doors, its size about twenty square meters, divided by walls the length of each one about a meter and a half, and over is an iron fence up to the roof, opened by a metal door leading to a space between the fences.
It was 16h30 when they asked us to sit, till the arrival of Ms Edegja. She came surrounded by the president of the stronghold, five guards and another man. They prevented us from touching her, applying the orders of the director.
They tried to pass her to the second fence, and when she saw her father, she cried and demanded to let her sit with him they rejected her request but she evaded from their hands, embaracing her father for 30 seconds, they stopped the hug and sent her to the second fence .
She sat in front of us; separating us the two fences and an empty space between them and two guards in that space where barely we can exchange words and talk to our daughter, who is completely cut off from any news about the outside world, and suffers from pain in her head, blood pressure as a result of the psychological stress practiced against her. They prohibited her getting a Quran and they do not let her to benefit from a break except half an hour with closely surveillance
We talked with her for 14 minutes, then they asked us to leave the room before they returned Edegja to her cell.
Recommendations
On this basis ASVDH express its deep concern about the dire situation whitch a member of the executive office is facing .
ASVDH demands…
the lifting of the isolation imposed on Ms. Lachgar and to enable her to have a radio, a television and a Quran;
the taking of necessary actions and measures to improve her living conditions inside the prison;
the stopping of her exposure to ill-treatment and inhumane treatment by the guards and some prisoners directed by the administration;
the ensuring of her right to health and to a visit with a specialist doctor and to allow her to visit her family directly without harassment, as well as to make her way to connect with the outside world and use the phone dedicated to prisoners;
the enabling of her a sufficient time to contact with other prisoners under normal procedures.
Reminder
Hafiz Ben-Hachem, who is currently is the Delegate General in charge of Penitentiary Administration and Reintegration, is responsible for many secret prisons during the years of Hassan II’s reign, especially Agdez, Qalaat M’gouna and the barracks of the Rapid Intervention in El-Aaiun .
He was also personally accompanied by Abdel-Aziz Alabouch to question the former Sahrawi abductees, known as the Group of the 1987 UN Mission, before he became the general director of security.
