Whereto, Morocco?

The Moroccan Interior Ministry Announces the Capture of the Terrorist Network “Belliraj"

    Sanae Boutahar

         

     The Moroccan authorities announced in a press conference the seizure of the terrorist cell "Belliraj” that has planned to accomplish terrorist projects that aims to quake the country’s stability, security and the life of the innocent citizens. The belgo-Moroccan Abdelkader Belliraj is a Moroccan living in Belgium. He belongs to "Al Badil Al Hadari”, a Moroccan government sector. Considering the proven links between Belliraj network and “Al Badil Al Hadari”, the Prime Minister decreed the dissolution on the part of Al Badil Al Hadari in conformity of the disposal code 57 of the law that is relating to the political parties.   

       In the framework of the dismantling of the network "Belliraj", the security services proceeded to 32 arrests of people involved in "Belliraj" cell.   Some fo the important names are as follow with profession:

Abdessamad Bennouh, director of a corporation of telecommunications in association with Mohamed El Yousfi to Casablanca. 

Mohamed El Marouani, administrator of Ittissalat Al Maghrib.

Mostafa Lmouatassime, professor at ENS in Casablanca.

Abdelhafid Sriti, journalist, correspondant to Al Manar channel.

Alaa Badella My el Ainin, pharmacist. 

Mohamed Chaabaoui, General commissioner policeman.   

Abdeladim Taki Imrani, doctor in a pharmacy in Casablanca. 

Hamid Najibi, professor. 

        The Interior ministry specifies the searches that were carried out in the residences where the stopped persons lived or worked; allow the discovery, particularly in Casablancaand Nador, of an arsenal of weapons and of munitions as follows:

2 machine guns of brand "UZI" endowed with 6 magazines and of a silent one. 

9 rifles Kalashnikovs provide with their magazines.

Wicks and triggers. 

16 automatic guns (of different brands and gauge), endowed with 19 magazines and of 5 silent one.

7 guns machine gunner of brand "SKORPIO", endowed with 10 magazines.  A batch of munitions of different calibers.

Aerosols paralyzing and balaclavas. 

          The judicial police investigations determined the origin of the financing of the network "Belliraj" that principally originates from steerings, receiving, direct contributions of members of the terrorist structure and capital laundering in projects of tourism and real estate

   

         "Belliraj" case invited itself to the parliament of Belgium.

       The Belgian Newspaper “Le Soir” wrote that Belliraj was informant of ‘the safety of the country’, underlining that the Belgian security information used him as “a source of interesting information of its records could interest certain services of foreign pieces of information”.  The informants recruited by ‘the safety of the country’ perceived a sum going of 500 to 2,500 Euros by information. 

            The French newspaper “Le Monde” wrote that the case of Belliraj, illustrates ‘the gaps’ investigation conducted by the security services in Belgium as a habitual form of ‘police war’ in the country. 

Pressures grow to end human rights abuses in Morocco

Recent Meeting at the World Organisation Against Torture in Geneva Pressures El Fassi Government to End Human Rights Abuses in Morocco[1]

Zineb Benalla

During a meeting organized recently at the World Organisation Against Torture (OMCT) in Geneva, Mr. Khalid Cherkaoui Smouni, President of the Moroccan Center for Human Rights, and Eric Sottas, Director of the OMCT, denounced torture and other cruel, inhuman, or degrading practices which violate the UN human rights treaties which are the core of the international system for the promotion and protection of human rights.

During this meeting, both parties discussed the situation of human rights and torture in the Arab world. Many countries in the region, including Morocco, have seen faced international pressure over deteriorating human rights conditions in recent years.

Morocco faces practical obstacles in the implementation of legal and institutional protections of these rights and, moreover, there is no system to effectively address the practice of torture in Morocco.

Mr. Cherkaoui and Mr. Sottas expressed their fear regarding recent human rights violations, including cases of torture not only in Morocco but also in other Arab countries. In many cases, individuals suspected of involvement in practices of torture were not prosecuted or interrogated because most of Arab governments did not set clear laws which condemn torture and sentences against this inhuman practice. For that reason, the situation of human rights in Morocco and all countries in the region must be examined within the legal and institutional context.

Why, in many countries in the region, does no lawmaker seem willing to enact legislation to forbid torture? Simply put, it is in large part because this practice is still maintained as a tool by regimes to oppress their opposition and to fight what they call “terrorism!” This situation contradicts reforms that most Arab countries have claimed to undergo in recent years and conflicts with most reports they present to international organizations about human rights in their countries.

Both Mr. Cherkaoui and Mr. Sottas asked to put an end to torture in prisons and police centers in Morocco and requested open investigations into torture cases, claiming people who were involved in torture should be interrogated and brought to court.

Morocco has made some progress regarding human rights since the formation of the El Yousoufi government in 1998.[2] Still, Mr. Sottas insisted on the importance of putting more pressure on the Moroccan government to stop violations of human rights in the name of combating terrorism.

Both activists agreed about the importance to incorporate civil society groups into these efforts and to organize awareness activities to shed light on torture and other human rights abuses and to spread the culture of human rights. In addition, police institution programs should include a specific course to teach police agents how to deal with detainees and respect the dignity of citizens and their liberties in accordance with the human rights treaties which Morocco has signed.

The activists also talked about the role of the media on this issue to inform not only Moroccans, but also the international community about the different violations of human rights which occur on Moroccan soil. The media can play an important role in influencing public opinion and standing in solidarity with human rights organizations. More importantly, politicians, human rights activists, and journalists should come together to express their opposition to torture of any individual, regardless of religion, ethnicity, gender, class or any other defining characteristic.

The Moroccan Center for Human Rights was established in April 1999, and produced a report in 2006 about how to institutionalize the protection of human rights in Morocco. Now the center is working with other international human rights organizations to pressure the Moroccan government to implement laws protecting human rights and ending torture.

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[1] Abbas El Fassi has served as Morocco’s Prime Minister since September 2007.

[2] El Youssoufi, Abderrahmane, is a Moroccan politician who served as the prime minister of Morocco from 1998 to 2002. He was arrested for his involvement in the UNFP, a left-wing political party in 1959, and again in 1963. Following his release from prison after the 1963 arrest, Youssoufi went into self-imposed exile in Paris for a period of fifteen years.

Morocco: About 85 Illegal Migrants to Spain in Custody

Sanae Boutahar 

           The Moroccan police has kept in custody 85 African trying to flee the borders to Spain. The capture took place in the southeast of Nador where migrants try to cross to the southern Spanish coast, police said.

          It is more than 500 migrants that have been caught in the Nador region this first month of 2008.

         There are thousands and thousands of undocumented African migrants present in Morocco; this fact is getting larger day after day. It tells the world to turn around to those African countries to know the reason behide thier flee.

                                                   coutresy of google

Arab Countries and Demorcatic Elections

Sanae Boutahar

              Every Arab country claims to be a model of democracy implementer, yet the deterioration of the public political awareness and the consideration of the discussion of citizens’ rights; such as questioning transparency of the national or regional elections is still titled as taboo, which is a flagrant sign that the democratic agenda in the Arab world is in urgent need to some professional honesty and political dignity. It is dead unbelievable that a nation can vote for the same president for 30 years when it undergoes poverty, illiteracy, and repression while the elite enjoys life to the fullest and gets enriched thanks to the national treasury with no control or limits. The conclusion many intellectual came up with is that the trust in the national or regional elections credibility has totally vanished and the number of the non-voters has increased. The funny rumor that is carried on this matter is that the best and quick way to be rich in short amount of time is to run for an election.     

The presidential election is not up to the nation as it only occurs among the big heads in total absence of the masses that are going to be governed, so those latter know about the result at best. But on the regional scale, what make the situation worse are those needy people who give their voices for money and use their corrupted connections to trick other needy to vote for untrustworthy candidates who adopt the same lies and the same insipid promises their former candidates failed to guarantee. Once wonder here whether the Arab people are that naïve to keep believing in those puppets and to keep being used in return of couple dinars or dirhams?

Another question that draws one’s attention is that why do we need to have a big budget to run for an election? Because if it is all matter of money then it does not matter how the candidate is qualified as long as he has enough money to fill mouths, pockets and stomachs, which, sadly enough, means that no matter how a patriot citizen can faithful and qualified be, he cannot run for any election if he does not have enough money to bribe the greediness of some people. It is all about money (clean or dirty) and connection (mostly dishonest). This is a way to say that the population itself can be part of its own problem especially when they know that there is no hope in the present candidate, they still give their voices for little selfishness like to get job for one or two of them or help others build a third floor in their houses.

             We are all hope to see one day a democratic election and trustworthy leaders locally or nationally loyal and faithful in serving their nation not themselves after being on the throne, guiding the country to success after success with no oppression or abuse.

Torture In Jails

               We hear a lot about the physical and psychological torture in the Israeli jails in Palestine and American jails in Iraq, Afghanistan or Guantanamo or elsewhere, which the least description can be attributed to it is non-human. The picture is so gloomy and painful. But, we also need to know that those torture jails are not unique in their ways of undermining human rights and breaking down the pride of the individual most often to death while the international communities protest and the detainees’ families complain about it continuously.   

            Abu Ghraib at Baghdad’s vicinity for instance -the Central Correctional Facility as the American government likes to call it now- was there before the American invasion, and who built was from Iraq, not designed for hosting marriage ceremonies but for the purpose of destroying the citizen’s dignity in mass humiliation probably in different ways but for the same purpose, destroying lives.

            Needless to say that, those jails have succeeded in feeding the survival of the despotic system of either the American’s with the current Iraqi government for about five years or the Saddamian’s before it.

            Saddam died but his Jail, his crime scene is still accomplishing the mission it was built for.   

            The American invasion to Iraq has put the former Iraqi system into perspective, but we need to keep in scope that many Abu Ghraibs are still functioning on the Arab territory and the detainees are either asked to forget their past after they are released or threatened to get their families in trouble as well.  

Sanae Boutahar

Infrastructure in Morocco Needs Improvement

             Each holiday for Moroccans means lack of transportation and terrible infrastructure.

Amine Talal, a Moroccan citizen traveling from Rabat to Oujda city, said that each Eid he suffers lack of transportation to get to his family and the government does not take any crisis management about it.

Traffic accidents happen a lot when using cars since roads are bad, so most people prefer to take the train. The train, from the old days French colonization was in Morocco, takes about 12 hours drive to reach the city of Oujda.

The ministry, after each traffic accident promises citizens to get new speed train and improve the road infrastructure for cars, but the time for it is to be decided upon years and years.

The ministry of transportation keeps calling upon drivers to be more careful while driving, but it does not take into account the bad road and rail network it has for its citizens.

The situation in Morocco though is a lot better than other countries, but citizens’ rights should be the top priority for the government.

Sanae Boutahar

Conduct of Homosexuality in Morocco

On November, 2007, a court in El Ksar lkbir, a city located on the south of Tangiers city, six men were sentenced to prison for homosexual conduct.

            Many newspapers reported that the men were engaged in a ‘gay wedding.’ The six men were sentenced for the violation of the Moroccan laws of “conducting unnatural acts with the same sex.”  However, there were no evidences showing that the men violated the law.

           The court sentenced the men from six months prison to ten months of prison.

           A mass of people went out to express their anger of what the men did. Amine, a Moroccan citizen said, “The Moroccan society is religiously conservative and such acts should be punished by the law.”

          Human rights watch considered the arrest for consensual homosexual conduct as violations for human rights.

Sanae Boutahar

Human Rights' Day

"I look forward confidently to the day when all who work for a living will be one with no thought to their separateness as Negroes, Jews, Italians or any other distinctions. This will be the day when we bring into full realization the American dream--a dream yet unfulfilled. A dream of equality of opportunity, of privilege and property widely distributed; a dream of a land where men will not take necessities from the many to give luxuries to the few; a dream of a land where men will not argue that the color of a man's skin determines the content of his character; a dream of a nation where all our gifts and resources are held not for ourselves alone, but as instruments of service for the rest of humanity; the dream of a country where every man will respect the dignity and worth of the human personality."-Martin Luther King, Jr.

"The most effective way to restrict democracy is to transfer decision-making from the public arena to unaccountable institutions: kings and princes, priestly castes, military juntas, party dictatorships, or modern corporations."-Noam Chomsky

"You are a human being.  You have rights inherent in that reality. You have dignity and worth that exists prior to law."-Lyn Beth Neylon

Whenever I hear anyone arguing for slavery, I feel a strong impulse to see it tried on him personally.-Abraham Lincoln

Diversity and Morocco

               

             Morocco is located in a strategic net place that connects its territories with Europe, Africa, and Middle-East. Some consider Morocco very diverse and others disagree and think its diversity is limited.               

            Actually, the Moroccan society is diverse in an internal sphere in the sense that Arabs, Berbers coexist under same territory; they have different dialects, different styles of living and different views towards the world but still they coexist peacefully.

           The Moroccan society is diverse in the sense that each city in Morocco has its different traditions, dresses and food. Diversity can also be seen in hardly defining Moroccans as one race. In other words, Moroccans who live in the north are white; In East Morocco, people are more brown; In the Atlas people's skin again is more white; Southern Morocco people have a more dark brown to Black skin color;however, color differences between Moroccans never were an issue.

            On the other hand, Morocco's limited diversity is judged by the fact that Morocco does not consist of different races or religions such as the U.S or the Middle-East. Moroccans are also considered to be limited in their knowledge about other cultures since they are more open to Europe than Middle-East or the US.

           Moroccans believe in the importance of dialogue between cultures in order to clear up misunderstandings;however, they might fall into misunderstandings because of thier lack of knowledge about races, ethnicities, languages and conflicts in the Middle-East; they only know the big image that the media shows.

             Moroccans, however, believe in the values and the essence of differences and they respect all ideas, religions, languages and styles of life.

Sanae Boutahar

Picture: courtesy of corbis.com

Slavery in Western Sahara

                                         

                                                                                           

Scene from Dakhla City, Western Sahara
courtesy of Photo MINURSO       

                                   

             Sobhana,35-years-old, a Sahraoui Algarian lives temporary in Morocco, said that her friend is a slave along with all of her family in the Western Sahara. She is asking the international community and human rights to take an action to free them.

            ‘My friend and her family are one of many Sahraoui slaves in Western Sahara,’ Sobhana said.   

           In the Sahraoui refugee camps in the Algerian desert region, there live thousands of slaves to be used for the Polizario’s ‘struggle for independence’.

            The slaves are mainly 'blacks' who serve the 'white' owners.

           Being a slave means being deprived from all your human rights. Sobhana said most of the slave women are raped and beaten. Children do not have the right to go to school, and men work with no mercy or salary.

           The Polisario's claim that they are a ‘liberation movement,’ however, they are the ones practicing slavery under the United Nations eyes.

          The question remains what are the reasons preventing the U.N. from intervening to free the slaves and provide them with security. It is for sure not an easy task especially with all the conflicts going on there; however, the U.N. as well as other organizations must take a real step in order to protect refugees, especially in Western Sahara from whoever is abusing them.

Sanae Boutahar