Morocco Holds Over 1,400 Foreign Inmates, Including Significant Number of French Citizens

In the House of Representatives, Mohamed Saleh Tamek, Delegate General of the DGAPR, specified to the deputies members of the Commission on Justice, Legislation and Human Rights that the prison population is composed of 1,432 foreign inmates at the end of September 2023, including 79 female prisoners. 77% of them are of African origin, or a total of 1,104 people. There are 58 Algerians, 29 Tunisians, 12 Libyans, as many Egyptians and 8 Mauritanians. 17% of foreign inmates in Moroccan prisons are nationals of European countries, or a total of 239 prisoners, including 82 Spaniards, 63 French and 23 Dutch, according to the DGAPR report.

Mohamed Saleh Tamek also revealed that the prison population in Morocco exceeded 103,000 inmates at the end of October 2023, or an average of 272 per 100,000 inhabitants. Prison overcrowding thus remains chronic in Morocco, the kingdom continuing to set records at the regional level. It is to be hoped that the draft law on alternative sentences, recently adopted by the House of Representatives, will contribute to the decongestion of prisons, in order to relieve the DGAPR whose resources are insufficient. The daily fine is set between 100 and 2,000 dirhams, specifies the text.