“They blindfolded and beat me”, “So much
blood was flowing from the open wound in my head”, “They took my clothes off
and stuck their fingers in my anus”. “They tried to remove our fingernails when
we refused to sign the falsified police reports”, “They forced us to cheer Long
Live the King and plucked our eyelashes”
You may easily confuse these with excerpts
from victims’ testimonies of Bashar Al Assad Agents’ infamous torture methods.
However, these words depict human rights abuses in a country whose officials
constantly condemn the Syrian Regime’s practices, and whose blossoming
pro-democracy youth are silenced and their voice suffocated by a long 18-month
dark season or repression, awaiting a Moroccan Spring the world has yet to
notice. These words have resonated in a Moroccan court in Ain Sbaa, Casablanca,
on September 2nd.
The horrors were inflicted on Samir Bradelly, Abderrahman
Assal, Tarek Rouchdi,
Youssef
Oubella, Nour Essalam
Kartachi, (While Laila Nassimi was beaten then relseased). All are
activists who have participated in a violently repressed Casablanca Protest
denouncing high prices and expensive living conditions for the poor on july 22nd.
They were plucked from the street and thrown into a van, then were blindfolded,
beaten, humiliated, thrown in jail on charges of assault to police officers in
duty and unauthorized public gathering. Then, torture and rape began.
These are not the only cases of arrests,
torture and wrongful incrimination of young protestors in Morocco. The Moroccan
Association of Human Rights reported over six hundred cases of human rights
abuses related to pro-democracy protests since they began February 20th,
2011. Young prisoners of opinion and political detainees are sentenced to up to
5 years in prison and 100 000 MAD for crimes they haven’t committed. Many have
gone on hunger strikes to protest against torture in prison in addition to
injustice.
24-year-old Abdessamad Haidour, was sentenced
in Taza to 3 years of prison and 15 000 MAD for posting videos on Youtube. He
was charged with lack of respect to the sacred (The King). His right to defend
himself in court has just been denied and his request rejected. Erroussi,
recently released after serving 4 months in prison, is yet another bitter
aftertaste of the “Years of Lead” in the not-so-new-era. He was tortured and
endured a hunger strike for more than three months. And the list of young Moroccans
and Horrors goes on and on, with more than a few dead.
The thing is, it isn’t at all about figures.
It’s not about the death toll, or the number of the tortured, detained. In
cases like this, numbers only know how to rise anyway, especially if such
repression goes unnoticed. If the Moroccan people, the elected PJD (Justice and
Development Party) representatives (and their limited-and-shrinking
prerogatives) and coalition government allow the Makhzen (The Regime: its
shadow government, King’s Advisors, Ministry of Interior, Security system and
Secret Services) to continue abusing their power in an opaque confusing system
of governance: we’re headed for Syria-ous trouble.
The clash between the Makhzen and the
PJD-lead government is growing. The Makhzen’s security apparatus flex their
muscles via the Ministry of Interior not only by violent repression of
pro-democracy protests, but also by preventing the leading Party’s youth from
organizing a public event altogether which the Head of the Government was
scheduled to take part in beginning of September. Febrayer.com reported The PJD
minister of Justice and Freedom calling the act “Unlawful”, while the minister
of General Affairs and Governance, Najib Boulif, said that this will show to
all PJD leaders that “repression hasn’t stopped and Morocco isn’t doing
better”.
Even after all the torture Samir,
Abderrahman, Tarek, Youssef, Nour and Laila endured, their message was as
follows: “We are committed to the demands of February 20th Movement.
We thank everyone who has supported us and ask for the immediate release of all
political detainees in Morocco. We urge all activists to remain loyal to the
righteous demands by protesting and challenging this suffocating repression”
The February 20th Protest Movement,
named after the date of its first 2011 nationwide protests, has weakened
temporarily during the Regime’s attempts to make-up democratize Morocco through
the on-paper-only constitutional reforms and “Vote yes” then “Vote” campaigns,
while the Ministry of Interior (the Palace’s most powerful tool and the
decisive institution when it comes to delivering Morocco’s election results)
remained in control. Now that the make-up powder is wearing off, the Makhzen is
running out of events to “pretend” things are changing, and unable to actually
change its controlling totalitarian ways. As a result, The movement is
revitalized, oddly invigorated by more repression, arrests and torture from the
authorities who are too eager to take revenge on activists, blind to what that
will cost them and how that speeds up the Makhzen’s utter failure.
The Makhzen is facing a giant mirror and
panicking at the reflection: its unwillingness and inability to decrease its
giant prerogatives after the system has worked so hard to create and pull the
most ruthless and greedy to form and become its pillars. This giant system that
runs on corruption and has promoted opportunism within it for too long was not
built to transition nor evolve into a democracy. Its propaganda machine was
told to say so, but Moroccans will be finding the opposite, the hard way too,
as each pillar resists change in appalling ways such as the torture described
above.
Morocco is scheduled to host the “Friends of
Syria” meeting in October to support the opposition to Bashar’s Regime. I
wouldn’t be surprised if Bashar Al Assad decides to hold a “Friends of Morocco”
meeting just for kicks. But I guess he’s too busy killing Syrians and Moroccan
officials are too busy preparing for a meeting to help save Syrians from
torture similar to what happens to political detainees in Moroccan prison
cells. Happy Arab Spring everyone! Cheers!
Zineb BELMKADDEM
Zineb BELMKADDEM
