Al hoceima, April 18, 2018
At least six people including Nasser Zafzafi, leader of the Protest Movement of Rif in Morocco (Hirak), have accused Moroccan police investigators of sexual rape and physical abuse as an alternative weapon to humiliate and punish them. During his recent appearance in court, Mr. Zafzafi asked his mother to leave the courtroom before he began to tell a hideous story of his torture from the minute his house got raided by the Moroccan police up to now. His mother, who fighting cancer left the courtroom with tears in her eyes.
Mr. Zafzafi stated that three of the police men who rained his house rushed to his bedroom, and managed to reach him and shoved his head with a metal bar. They then punched him in the face with their handcuffs, followed by kicks in the stomach. The Leader of the Rif Protest Movement who appeared to be suffering from torture and occasionally paused to catch his breathe added that a police officer had repeatedly hit him and slammed his head to the wall until he was bleeding while asking him to say “Long Live The King”. Mr. Zafzafi continued his story and said that one of the police officers raped him with his finger while another officer pulled down Zafzafi’s pants and raped him with a stick. In addition, Naseer has been detained in a solitary confinement for over ten months now.
In another case, Ayman, 16 year old boy from lmzouren who’s been detained told the judge, ” I was raped by Moroccan Police. They had me chose between penetration with a glass bottle or their penises. They then tied me and three of them started to touch me and putting their fingers in my anus. Ayman stated to the judge that after he lost his strength to resist the rape, they finally raped him as they were calling him a “bastard of Spaniards”. During his court, his mother uncontrollably broke into tears and ran towards him to hug him. Two agents stopped her and dragged her out of the court. The poor mother sadly shouted outside “my child, my soul, what have you done to my child you criminals?”
Farida Houdo, the sister of the abducted Riffian activist Abdelali Houdo said on Dutch radio yesterday that half of the prisoners were terribly raped. While Ahmed Zafzafi, father of Nasser Zafzafi had confirmed that his son has not told all the violence, rape and sexual assault he had gone through inside police station during their investigations.
Abdessadek Bouchtaoui, lawyer of the detained Hirak Rif activists has also confirmed the ongoing mass rapes. He added that reports of sexual abuse were only the “tip of the iceberg” as many victims chose not to publicly speak about it due to family-related reasons.
Despite the seriousness of these cases, the Moroccan justice system did not open an independent investigation nor did they at least issue a statement. On the other hand, the Moroccan government says that this matter is the jurisdiction of the judiciary system. While social networks and human rights groups have condemned the rape allegations, most of the Moroccan political parties have remained silent and have not issued any statement.
