Human Rights Groups Urge Morocco’s King to Free 110 Political Prisoners Amid COVID-19 Concerns

In an open letter to King Mohammed VI, the APDHA and the other signatory organizations have expressed their concerns about the situation of "political and opinion prisoners", including those from the Rif, in this period of health crisis due to covid-19.

The situation is "very worrying", say the signatory associations, who fear for the lives of these prisoners "exposed to situations of extreme vulnerability, since both officials and detainees have already tested positive in some prisons in the country."

For these reasons, the APDHA calls on King Mohammed VI to release political and opinion prisoners, particularly those from the Rif, "as he did for hundreds of ordinary prisoners a few weeks ago".

According to the association, it is decades of "repression, infamy and abandonment" that have led the inhabitants of the Rif to make themselves heard at different times in history. The latest event took place on October 28, 2016, "after the murder of Mohsin Fikri, a street vendor of fish who, wanting to recover his goods seized by the Moroccan police, was crushed by the garbage truck in which the agents had thrown the goods".

The popular movement "Al Hirak", born following the burial of the young Moroccan in which more than 50,000 people participated, multiplied the actions of claims through assemblies in the streets, markets and squares. Essentially, it demanded a multidisciplinary hospital dedicated to cancer, whose rate was "very high" in the region, a university in Al Hoceima, the end of discrimination in terms of fishing, agriculture, employment, transport and communications...

In response to these peaceful marches, "arrests, kidnappings, torture, rapes, imprisonments and convictions" ranging from 2 to 20 years. This is the case of Nasser Zefzafi, the most visible leader of the movement, accused of "conspiracy to undermine the security of the State", of Nabil Ahmjiq, Ouassim Boustati and Samir Ighid.

"Many activists have been forced into exile to avoid ending up in Moroccan prisons," lament the signatories who, through this letter, express their solidarity with their "brothers and sisters of the Rif".