In a last ditch effort to save the lives of Political Prisoners throughout the world and circumvent a cataclysmic humanitarian tragedy amid increasing concerns of Covid-19, Rif Movement leader Nasser Zafzafi joins efforts with a select team of equally esteemed political prisoners throughout the world to dispatch an urgent letter to the United Nations’ High Commissioner for Human Rights, Ms. Michelle Bachelet.
The letter, which was endorsed Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, as well as the currently imprisoned members of the Catalan Independence Movement, to name a few was delivered on April 30th was in response to a solemn Humanitarian appeal, issued by Ms. Bachelet’s office a mere 5 days earlier on April 25th, urging the world governments to “drastically reduce” their overcrowded prison population by releasing “the sick and the elderly as well as each and every person who is imprisoned without sufficient legal basis, including political prisoners and others detained for expressing critical opinions or dissidence”.
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The letter articulated their growing alarm that their respective governments are not heeding this Humanitarian exhortation, “… concerned that many States are not complying with your recommendations, since as you stated, maintaining inmates in detention during this pandemic carries a high risk to their life and health” concurring with the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights’ findings that “in countries that are doing very large prisoner releases, (they) have not been necessarily releasing those types of prisoners.” This is particularly true for Morocco who issued a “Humanitarian” release benefiting a total of 5654 inmates on April 5th, with not one single political prisoner in their midst.
The letter further stressed the bleak reality of their prospects “the situation becomes even more worrying when we take into account the lack of hygiene, sanitary resources and overcrowding in the prisons and detention centers of most of our countries. The outbreaks are rising day by day in prisons, as well as the number of deaths.”
The substandard Moroccan prisons where Nacer Zefzafi is serving out his punitive 20 year sentence along with more than 60 other Rif movement prisoners and about 60+ other independent political prisoners, have virtually become death traps throughout the Covid-19 pandemic. According to the Moroccan Observatory for Prisons’ 2019 annul report, the country is notorious for not only its blatant overcrowding “The prison of Al Arjat 1, a few kilometers north of Rabat, is at 205% of its capacity, while the Moul El Bergui Safi prison is at 173% and Morocco’s largest prison, ‘Oukasha’ in Casablanca, is at 172% capacity …” but also their sadistic inhumane lack of basic hygiene, making the medically recommended “social distancing” an impossibility.
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The United Nations was not the first nor will it be the last apparatus to urge Morocco to immediately and unconditionally release all its political prisoners to no avail. Amnesty International has also issued a similar plea on April 7th and so did a collaboration of Moroccan activists. All initiatives and appeals for a humanitarian release of Political Prisoners continues to be systematically ignored by the Moroccan government even as numerous prisons across the country (Ouarzazat, Q’sar K’bir, Tetouan, Tangier 2, Sale 2 and Oujda) have been confirmed to have been compromised by the deadly virus.
The potential threat to the lives of these political prisoners scales up with each passing day, especially that many suffer from serious health conditions, further made worse by their multiple hunger strikes and lack of basic nutrition in the Moroccan prison system.
