Press conference by MOROCCO ON HUMAN RIGHTS, RECONCILIATION, HUMAN DEVELOPMENT

A new report by Morocco’s first official truth commission has called on Morocco’s Government to publicly assume responsibility for, and financially compensate, thousands of Moroccans who were illegally detained, imprisoned, tortured and forcibly disappeared by State officials from the 1950s to 1990s, Driss Benzekri, President of the Moroccan Advisory Council for Human Rights and former Chairman of the Government-created Moroccan Equity and Reconciliation Commission, said during a news conference at Headquarters this morning.

The report, which Moroccan King Mohammed VI approved for public release in mid-December, called for financial compensation, medical and psychological care and community-based socio-economic development projects for 100,000 victims of human rights abuses and their families.  “ Morocco has made significant progress in advancing democracy and human rights since 1990.  But the Commission decided that constitutional reform was necessary, including through a stronger parliamentarian role in investigating human rights abuses”, Mr. Benzekri said.

The 17-member Commission also called for a constitutional ban on forced and arbitrary detention, genocide, torture and other forms of cruel punishment,

a national strategy to end impunity, stricter codes of conduct and gender-sensitivity training for security personnel, greater autonomy for the Higher Magistracy Council (national legislature), and stronger penal codes based on recommendations presented during the 2004 Meknes national forum on penal law and by the Consultative Council on Human Rights. Mr. Benzekri also implored Moroccan authorities to ratify the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court and its Optional Protocol, as well as other internationally recognized human rights instruments, stressing that international law was above Moroccan law.

The report also concluded that 742 people who involuntarily disappeared between the 1950s and 1990s merited compensation.  Mr. Benzekri -- a leading human rights activist who spent 17 years as a political prisoner in secret detention -- said the Commission would work during the next six months with DNA experts on 60 pending cases, including the 1963 disappearances of human rights activists, to find victims’ remains and the people responsible for their deaths, as well as determine appropriate compensation.  The Commission, in partnership with Moroccan judicial officials and medical personnel, had identified the remains of 60 per cent to 80 per cent of the 114 people who were forcibly disappeared during the 1981 Casablanca riots, he said.

He said the Commission had evaluated 16,000 cases of human rights abuses over an 18-month period, interviewing families and witnesses of the disappeared, inspecting former detention centres, and analysing case records of disappeared persons compiled by security forces, the Royal Armed Forces, Amnesty International, and the United Nations Working Group on Enforced and Involuntary Disappearances.  It also consulted lawyers, professors and non-governmental organizations on their findings and appropriate courses of compensatory action, Mr. Benzekri said.  The moves were part of King Mohammed VI’s efforts to promote democracy, good governance and human rights through constitutional and judicial reform and human development in a country celebrating its fiftieth anniversary of independence.  Prior to the Commission’s investigation, Moroccan authorities had already paid $100 million to 7,000 victims of human rights abuses and their families.

While the Commission lacked the mandate to sue alleged human rights violators, citizens could draw from the report’s findings to take legal action against purported abusers, he said.

Also during the news conference, Ahmed Herzenni, Member of the Scientific Committee that authored the Comprehensive Report on Human Development, known as RHD50, announced that the 4,000-page report, which provided an overview of Morocco’s social, economic, health, employment, human rights, cultural and political progress and remaining challenges since achieving independence in 1956, would be publicly available online as of 24 January.

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For information media • not an official record