ASVDH has learned that the human rights activist Mr Hassanna Duihi has been abducted Monday from his hotel room in Tiznit by ten Moroccan plainclothes police officers. In a declaration from the lawyer Mrs Dolores Travieso, Mr Hassanna was accompanying her and the lawyer Julio Vega from El Aiun to Tiznit yesterday, Sunday, for the upcoming trial of ten Western Saharan political prisoners set for today, 8 February 2010. She added that their rooms were in the same hallway.
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29 / 01 / 2010 | Reports
Human rights conditions deteriorated overall in 2009 in Morocco, although the country continued to have a lively civil society and independent press. The government, aided by complaisant courts, used repressive legislation to punish and imprison peaceful opponents, especially those who violate taboos against criticizing the king or the monarchy, questioning the ‘Moroccanness’ of Western Sahara, or ‘denigrating’ Islam.
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Ahmed Mahmoud Haddi (El Kainan), a Sahrawi human rights defender and political prisoner, appeared Thursday, January 28, 2010, before the Moroccan investigating judge of the Court of Appeal in Rabat for a second time, dealing with his arrest in November in Casablanca. The charges come under common and criminal law.
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Today, 28 January, around noon, ASVDH has learned of the liberation of its colleague, Degja Lachgar, imprisoned in Salé, Morocco, with six other human rights defenders.
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ASVDH has learned that the two Sahrawi students Baba Ali Toumi and Abdellah Dihani are now detained in the prison of Ait Meloul south of Agadir. They were previously incarcerated in the prison of Okasha and Berchid near Casablanca. Their conditions of detention are harsh and not consistent with international or Moroccan law.
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Sahrawi Human Rights activist and member of the executive office of the ASVDH, Degja Lachgar, detained in the prison of Salé, along with six of her colleagues, began a hunger strike on Monday, January 18, to protest against the inhumane conditions of her and to achieve a reduction of the number of women in her cell by two, allowing her to have a personal radio and to meet her colleagues detained in the same prison.
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Mr Dah Mustapha and Mrs El Ghalia Djimi, ASVDH members, have said that the Moroccan passport authorities have refused to issue them their passports. Ms. Ghalia deposited her file on 24 December 2009 and Mr. Mustapha has filed his on 5 January 2010. In the normal case when a person has deposited a file, it is available in three days.
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Human rights defender Aminatou Haidar was allowed to return to her home in Laayoune on 17 December. She and her family have since been kept under constant surveillance, and several visitors have been preventing from seeing her.
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Ahmed Mahmoud Haddi, who was detained in conditions amounting to an enforced disappearance by the Moroccan security forces in October, is now facing trial on criminal charges and has been remanded to prison. He is believed to have been tortured in custody, and is at risk of receiving an unfair trial.
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‘In a new report issued today, on the fourth anniversary of his speech marking the end of the work of the Equity and Reconciliation Commission (Instance Equité et Réconciliation, IER), Amnesty International called on King Mohamed VI to honour the expectations raised by this groundbreaking initiative. With the establishment and work of the IER, the Moroccan authorities promised to tackle the legacy of gross past human rights violations in Morocco and Western Sahara which prevailed during the period known as the “years of lead” and provide an effective remedy to its thousands of victims. Despite these promises, only partial truths about violations of the past have been revealed, justice has not been addressed and much needed institutional and legal reforms to ensure that such violations do not recur have not been implemented.’
