pi_fp_marocfr_fichepays.png

Morocco and Western Sahara

Capital city — Rabat

+
Country-profile

Latest updates

The prison service is required to ensure that prisoners sentenced to death maintain family ties. However, these people are isolated and rarely receive visits. The main reasons for this are the geographical distance from the central prisons and the “dishonour” felt by families. A sense of abandonment is widespread among prisoners sentenced to death.

Following their visit in September 2012, the UN Special Rapporteur reported that living conditions on death row in Morocco are classed as cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment.

  • Prison Insider has published the account of Khadija Amrir, condemned to death in 1995 and freed on 2 August 2016, following a succession of royal pardons for good conduct.

    “They would tell me that if I ever got transferred, it would be because I was going to be executed. I couldn’t get a wink of sleep. I accepted my fate, but I was terrified of being put to death. I was able to stay in touch with my father on a regular basis. When I was sentenced to death, he got divorced from my step-mother. He wanted to see me free before he died - it was his dream, and it came true. He died 40 days after I was freed, at the age of 103”.

    i
    01/02/2017
    / Prison Insider

The prison service does not provide special protection for LGBTI prisoners. These people are in a highly vulnerable position within prisons. They are often the target of attacks.

  • Prison Insider has published the account of Sama, a trans woman serving a sentence in the Boulmharez prison because of her gender identity.

    “And he slapped me hard. I felt my head spin with the third slap. I was scared. So, I signed a statement without even reading it. I later realised that he wrote that I admitted to homosexual relations, which are punishable by the Moroccan law. I was transferred to Boulmharez prison and locked up, again with only male prisoners…”

    i
    06/07/2019
    / Prison Insider

It is not guaranteed that prisoners can maintain family ties during their time in solitary confinement. Isolated prisoners are not allowed visits. The prisoners can write letters but only to their family. Prisoners in solitary confinement maintain their right to freely communicate with their lawyer.

  • Ali Aarrass is being held in isolation, in spite of the decision on 27 March 2017 by the Committee of the United Nations against torture, which ordered Morocco to put an end to this regime. The Belgo-Moroccan was arrested for the first time in 2006 in Spain at Morocco’s behest, on suspicion of terrorism. He was extradited to Morocco in 2010 where he is serving a 12-year sentence. The United Nations working group on arbitrary detention has been unsuccessfully demanding his release since 2013, after he was tortured in Moroccan prisons.

    His sister, Farida Aarrass, has given an account of a visit to her brother in 2017 in Tiflet 2, which is available here.

    i
    10/04/2017
    / Prison Insider