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<text> <title> Morocco And Western Sahara </title> <article> <hdr> Human Rights Watch World Report 1992 Middle East Watch: Morocco and Western Sahara </hdr> <body> Human Rights Developments King Hassan II took several dramatic steps affecting human rights in 1991, including releasing hundreds of political prisoners, closing down the secret detention center of Tazmamart, and endorsing a new law limiting the length of incommunicado detention. The public discussion of abuses was also freer than in previous years. While these developments helped to improve the overall human rights picture and raise hopes for continued progress, they did not alter the laws and institutions responsible for the systematic nature of abuses in Morocco. Repression during and after the Persian Gulf war revealed how tightly authorities continue to restrict political expression. Detainees under interrogation were routinely tortured and subjected to trials that failed to adhere to international standards of due process. Demonstrations and public meetings organized by opposition parties, trade unions and human rights organizations were often restricted, and publications were seized or banned because of their political content. The Moroccan judicial system is stacked against persons arrested on political or security grounds. Suspects are often tortured by the judicial police (police judiciaire) during incommunicado (garde à vue) detention until they sign a confession, and are then convicted on the basis of that confession alone. Morocco's judges, who are appointed by the executive branch, tend to dismiss summarily defense motions to examine evidence of torture or procedural irregularities during interrogation. Abuses of this nature were experienced by many of the suspects arrested in connection with riots that took place in Fez, Tangier and other cities on December 14 and 15, 1990, and by persons arrested for participating in "illegal" pro-Iraq demonstrations before and during the Gulf war. As of March 1991, some 850 Moroccans had been sentenced to up to fifteen years in prison in connection with the December riots, in trials of up to eighty-five defendants at a time. Most of the defendants had been charged with participating in the looting and violent demonstrations that broke out on December 14, the day that a general strike was declared by two major unions. Many of these defendants, as well as persons arrested for demonstrating during the Gulf war, were subjected to irregularities in arrest and pretrial procedures, and were convicted in unfair trials in which defense lawyers were given almost no time to prepare and judges dismissed motions to examine evidence of torture. (See Amnesty International, "Morocco: Update on Human Rights Violations," March 1991. The independent Moroccan Organization for Human Rights also denounced unfair trials of both groups of defendants in communiques of January 9 and 23, 1991. The latter describes how, on January 22, a court of first instance in Fez refused a defense motion to order a medical expert to examine marks on the bodies of the defendants who had been arrested four days earlier in a demonstration.) As rare as it may be for a defendant's allegations of torture to be examined by a judge, it is even more unusual for physical abuse to lead to punishment of the responsible parties. Middle East Watch is aware of no member of the security forces who has been charged with using excessive force in suppressing the December 1990 riots or any subsequent demonstration or disturbance. Only one case of abuse in detention led to legal action in 1991: six Casablanca policemen were arrested and charged in connection with the death of Lamseguem el-Hachmi, a thirty-six-year-old peddler and an activist in one of the legal opposition parties, who was arrested in a sweep of street vendors on September 21 and died the same day. (Liberation (Rabat), November 15, 1991. Morocco has signed the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, adopted by the U.N. General Assembly in 1984, but has not yet ratified it.) New limits on the duration of incommunicado detention and preventive detention (when a person is administratively placed in custody but not held incommunicado) were proposed by the officially created Consultative Council on Human Rights, described below, and approved by the king and Parliament in early 1991. To date, however, these reforms have not been promulgated. The proposed law would make the following changes: -- Incommunicado detention would be limited to four days except for a single extension for the same period when the investigation involves offenses against the internal or external security of the state. The current legal maximum in nearly all cases involving state security is twelve days. However, a 1971 law would remain on the books and allow authorities to exceed the new eight-day limit for offenses against state security in which the suspects are military personnel, or for certain offenses against state security in which the suspects are civilians. -- The new law would not give a detainee the right to legal counsel while being held incommunicado, but would allow a lawyer to be present when the detainee is brought before a prosecutor or judge at the end of his incommunicado detention. -- The new law would also limit preventive detention to two months, with up to five two-month renewals permitted when the investigation involves a grave crime and an order with an explanation is issued each time by a judge. Currently, preventive detention orders can be renewed indefinitely. The proposed law would be a step in the right direction. According to lawyers active in the independent Moroccan Organization for Human Rights (OMDH), the "spirit" of the law has already contributed to a reduction in the mistreatment of incommunicado detainees. However, the proposed legal limit of eight days on incommunicado detention would not by itself eliminate the torture of suspects, which regularly has occurred during the initial days of detention. Even under the new law, no independent persons are allowed access to detainees while they are being held incommunicado. Only enforcement of the procedural and criminal safeguards against torture will deter abuse. There are several hundred unresolved cases of suspected disappearance in Morocco. Most, but not all, involve Western Saharans, or Sahrawis. The government denies that it is holding any Sahrawis after releasing more than three hundred since June. The release of the Sahrawis was one of two dramatic improvements in 1991 with regard to disappearances in Morocco. The other was the closure in September of the secret detention center of Tazmamart, where sixty-one military personnel had been transferred in 1973 and held incommunicado since then in appalling conditions. (One inmate was permitted to correspond infrequently with his American wife. All other letters to the outside world had to be smuggled out. See generally Middle East Watch, "Deaths in a Secret Detention Center," April 1990.) These measures were major breakthroughs on two issues that previously the government had refused to address publicly. However, the breakthroughs were of limited scope. In neither case was any official information provided about those who had died while in secret detention. Furthermore, several hundred Sahrawis remained unaccounted for, and may still be in Moroccan custody, despite official denials. The inmates at Tazmamart had been sentenced to terms ranging from three years to life in prison for their roles in two abortive coup attempts in 1971 and 1972. None of them--not even the more than fifty who had completed their terms--was freed. In September, after years of denying the existence of Tazmamart, officials who insisted on anonymity indicated