Monday, 16 May 2011
Moroccan police arrest a protester near the alleged detention and torture center in Rabat. (File photo)
A mutiny broke out on Sunday inside an alleged secret detention and torture center on the outskirts of the capital Rabat, Al Arabiya TV reported, a day after security forces broke up a march by attacking dozens of human rights activists with truncheons and tear gas.
The Moroccan interior ministry has deployed large numbers of security forces to quell the rebellion, according to an Al Arabiya correspondent in Rabat.
Moroccan security forces on Sunday dispersed dozens of human rights activists trying to reach and protest at alleged secret prison, located in Tamara, near the capital Rabat.
The Moroccan interior ministry has deployed large numbers of security forces to quell the rebellion, according to an Al Arabiya correspondent in Rabat.
Moroccan security forces on Sunday dispersed dozens of human rights activists trying to reach and protest at alleged secret prison, located in Tamara, near the capital Rabat.
The official news agency (MAP) said police dispersed the gathering of “100 radicals” trying to organize an “unauthorized march and who illegally occupied a public road.”
The wounded, some from beatings, were taken to hospital in the capital, as the country’s main rights group accused police of a heavy-handed response to a peaceful demonstration.
A large group of policemen with dozens of vans were early in the morning in areas where the protesters were to gather before moving to the Moroccan intelligence services’ detention center near the city.
The demonstrators had announced earlier in the week they planned a picnic protest outside the center to highlight alleged torture and other human rights abuses of people held there, including Islamists suspected of terrorism.
The police action prevented them from reaching the center and they moved instead to the headquarters of the Moroccan Association of Human Rights.
One bystander said he saw police hit a girl in the abdomen with a truncheon and another said an activist suffered wounds to the head and nose.
“We condemn this violent intervention,” the human rights group president, Khadija Ryadi, told Agence-France Presse.
“It is illegal because it is a public place and the demonstration was peaceful. The state is afraid that this center will be unveiled,” she said.
The general prosecutor of the Rabat appeals court planned to visit the intelligence service headquarters near the town of Temara outside Rabat as part of an investigation of the incident.
And the national council of human rights, a body recently created by King Mohammed VI, said it would also conduct a similar probe at the intelligence headquarters.
Several NGOs, including Human Rights Watch (HRW) and Amnesty International, have alleged human rights violations are committed at the secret center.
According to HRW, people suspected of terrorism, including Islamists, have been tortured there especially after the 2003 suicide attacks in Casablanca that left 44 dead including 13 suicide bombers.
The government’s chief spokesman, Khalid Naciri, was quoted as saying by the private Atlantic radio station that the protest was broken up because it had been banned.
He also denied there was a secret detention facility in the vicinity, saying the building singled out by the protesters was a local government administrative office.
Moroccan officials deny allegations from opposition groups and some human rights campaigners that they run secret detention centers and say all detainees are treated in strict accordance with the law.
Reuters adds:
Moroccan authorities used tear gas and truncheons on Monday to put down a prison protest by accused Islamists who climbed on a roof demanding pardon or review of their cases, human rights activists said.
Around 150 people took part in the protest at Zaki prison in Sale, northeast of the capital Rabat. At least 30 were injured including one who fell from the roof, said Binothmane Reda, a member of a coordination committee for ex-Islamist detainees.
The prisoners’ grievances include detailed allegations of torture and arbitrary treatment. The government says it treats detainees in strict accordance with the law.
“They want the government to deliver on its promise to review the trials or to free them,” said Reda, adding that he spoke to prisoners by phone inside the prison. There was no immediate comment from authorities.
At least 324 people accused of belonging to an Islamic militant group are detained at Zaki. Some were detained after a suicide bomb attack in Casablanca in 2003 that killed 33 people.
Others were detained after a bomb attack on a cafe in Marrakesh on April 28 that killed 17 people including eight French nationals.
They (authorities) have been using tear gas for more than four hours now,” Mohamed Haqiqi, chairman of the Karama human rights forum, told Reuters of the scene inside the prison.
Morocco has been scene to pro-reform protests linked to uprisings this year as part of the Arab Spring movement.
It freed 92 political prisoners in April under a pardon issued by King Mohammed following protests demanding democratic reform. The majority of those freed or whose sentences were reduced were members of the Islamist Salafist Jihad group.
Tear gas could be heard being fired inside the prison grounds and the gas wafted onto the street. At least 23 security force vehicles and a water cannon truck were seen outside, a Reuters witness said.
(Mustapha Ajbaili, an editor at Al Arabiya English, can be reached at: Mustapha.ajbaili@mbc.net)
The wounded, some from beatings, were taken to hospital in the capital, as the country’s main rights group accused police of a heavy-handed response to a peaceful demonstration.
A large group of policemen with dozens of vans were early in the morning in areas where the protesters were to gather before moving to the Moroccan intelligence services’ detention center near the city.
The demonstrators had announced earlier in the week they planned a picnic protest outside the center to highlight alleged torture and other human rights abuses of people held there, including Islamists suspected of terrorism.
The police action prevented them from reaching the center and they moved instead to the headquarters of the Moroccan Association of Human Rights.
One bystander said he saw police hit a girl in the abdomen with a truncheon and another said an activist suffered wounds to the head and nose.
“We condemn this violent intervention,” the human rights group president, Khadija Ryadi, told Agence-France Presse.
“It is illegal because it is a public place and the demonstration was peaceful. The state is afraid that this center will be unveiled,” she said.
The general prosecutor of the Rabat appeals court planned to visit the intelligence service headquarters near the town of Temara outside Rabat as part of an investigation of the incident.
And the national council of human rights, a body recently created by King Mohammed VI, said it would also conduct a similar probe at the intelligence headquarters.
Several NGOs, including Human Rights Watch (HRW) and Amnesty International, have alleged human rights violations are committed at the secret center.
According to HRW, people suspected of terrorism, including Islamists, have been tortured there especially after the 2003 suicide attacks in Casablanca that left 44 dead including 13 suicide bombers.
The government’s chief spokesman, Khalid Naciri, was quoted as saying by the private Atlantic radio station that the protest was broken up because it had been banned.
He also denied there was a secret detention facility in the vicinity, saying the building singled out by the protesters was a local government administrative office.
Moroccan officials deny allegations from opposition groups and some human rights campaigners that they run secret detention centers and say all detainees are treated in strict accordance with the law.
Reuters adds:
Moroccan authorities used tear gas and truncheons on Monday to put down a prison protest by accused Islamists who climbed on a roof demanding pardon or review of their cases, human rights activists said.
Around 150 people took part in the protest at Zaki prison in Sale, northeast of the capital Rabat. At least 30 were injured including one who fell from the roof, said Binothmane Reda, a member of a coordination committee for ex-Islamist detainees.
The prisoners’ grievances include detailed allegations of torture and arbitrary treatment. The government says it treats detainees in strict accordance with the law.
“They want the government to deliver on its promise to review the trials or to free them,” said Reda, adding that he spoke to prisoners by phone inside the prison. There was no immediate comment from authorities.
At least 324 people accused of belonging to an Islamic militant group are detained at Zaki. Some were detained after a suicide bomb attack in Casablanca in 2003 that killed 33 people.
Others were detained after a bomb attack on a cafe in Marrakesh on April 28 that killed 17 people including eight French nationals.
They (authorities) have been using tear gas for more than four hours now,” Mohamed Haqiqi, chairman of the Karama human rights forum, told Reuters of the scene inside the prison.
Morocco has been scene to pro-reform protests linked to uprisings this year as part of the Arab Spring movement.
It freed 92 political prisoners in April under a pardon issued by King Mohammed following protests demanding democratic reform. The majority of those freed or whose sentences were reduced were members of the Islamist Salafist Jihad group.
Tear gas could be heard being fired inside the prison grounds and the gas wafted onto the street. At least 23 security force vehicles and a water cannon truck were seen outside, a Reuters witness said.
(Mustapha Ajbaili, an editor at Al Arabiya English, can be reached at: Mustapha.ajbaili@mbc.net)
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