RABAT (Reuters) – twenty-seven Moroccan political prisoners are with health impaired due to a hunger strike by alleged violations such as incommunicado detention and torture, they said on Tuesday the main groups of human rights in the country.
Prisoners are protesting against “long detentions without trial… repeated provocations accompanied by threats and beatings and inhumane treatment, including insulation”, said the network of Human rights organizations. They also want to be investigated cases of torture have been reported, and the right to medical treatment, he added.
Network, which integrates 18 Moroccan independent human rights organizations published a list of 27 political prisoners who, he said, bear, on hunger strike, several weeks or more after being sentenced to prison or detained for their involvement in anti-Government protests.
“His health has deteriorated, while officials ignored their cases”, said.
The Minister of Justice and civil liberties, Mustafa Ramid, and spokesman of the Government Mustafa El-Jalfi not could be contacted at the moment. The Government says it is committed to the fulfilment of human rights, including those of prisoners.
Morocco has tried to avoid riots similar to the Arab spring, and King Mohamed VI offered to curb its powers to contain the mass demonstrations for democracy of the past year. However, continue to forge regular form protests against unemployment, poverty and official corruption. Some have ended violently.
Among the strikers is Azzedine Errussi, an activist of left-wing and college student, who has been fasting since December 12 in a prison of the impoverished city of Taza, in the North of the country. Authorities transferred him in late March to a hospital in Rabat.
Errussi was sentenced to five months in prison for “insulting, hijack and hitting” to a police officer after being arrested during student protests in the University Cup. His supporters say the charges were intended to silence a prominent figure of the student protest movement.
The network also quoted Abdeljalil Akadil, who was among 10 people sentenced in January to four years in prison for setting fire to public property and attacking the police during the riots by unemployment that took place in August in the city of Safi on the Atlantic coast.
Akadil, a human rights activist, is on hunger strike since February 20, the network said. The main group of human rights in the country AMDH said that he has been tortured three days after his arrest to force him to admit his involvement in the unrest.
The network has asked Prime Minister Abdelilah Benkirane, “quickly respond to the legitimate demands of the detainees on hunger strike” and “protect the right to life enshrined in international conventions and human rights”.
“We have witnessed in recent months of prisoners increased in Moroccan prisons hunger strike”, said Abdelilah Benabdeslam AMDH, which is part of the network. “(This) is due to our policy of law enforcement so often sees prison as a solution to every problem”.
Hafid Benhachem, head of the prison authority of Morocco, was not available at the moment to make statements.
/Por Souhail Karam /
