Political Cortex: Brain Food for the Body Politic

THE United States is helping Morocco to build a new interrogation and detention facility for Al-Qaeda suspects near its capital, Rabat, according to western intelligence sources.

The sources confirmed last week that building was under way at Ain Aouda, above a wooded gorge south of Rabat's diplomatic district. Locals said they had often seen American vehicles with diplomatic plates in the area.

The construction of the new compound, run by the Direction de la Securité du Territoire (DST), the Moroccan secret police, adds to a substantial body of evidence that Morocco is one of America's principal partners in the secret "rendition" programme in which the CIA flies prisoners to third countries for interrogation.

The Bush administration's own State Department has released a negative report on Morocco's human rights violations:

Although progress continued in some areas, the human rights record remained poor in other areas. Citizens lacked the full ability to change their government. While citizens may elect representatives to Parliament and to municipal and regional councils, the King has discretionary authority to appoint and dismiss the Prime Minister, and Cabinet, and to dissolve Parliament.

The Constitution may not be changed without the King's approval. Since the May 2003 terrorist attacks in Casablanca, authorities detained several thousand persons for possible involvement with terrorist groups and sentenced more than 400. In May 2003, an antiterrorist law passed by the Parliament, very broadly defined terrorism as an act or acts intended to create fear and discord in society and threaten its safety.

During the year, there were specific charges by Human Rights Watch (HRW) of torture, mistreatment, and denial of rights during the judicial process of detainees in the aftermath of the May 2003 terrorist attacks. The Government generally rejected these allegations. Impunity remained a problem. Human rights groups did not believe that the Government disclosed all the information available about citizens who were abducted from the 1960s through the 1980s.

 At times, authorities arbitrarily arrested and detained persons. Authorities infringed on citizens' privacy rights. Prison conditions remained extremely poor. The judiciary lacked independence and was subject to government influence and corruption. While there was considerable freedom of the press, journalists regularly practiced self-censorship, and two were sentenced to prison and remained in prison at year's end. The police violently dispersed several peaceful demonstrations during the year.

The Government generally respected freedom of religion; however, there were some limitations. Violence and societal discrimination against women were problems. The protection of unaccompanied, repatriated children was a problem. Trafficking in persons remained a problem. Child labor was a problem, principally the practice of the illegal employment of young girls who were subjected to exploitative domestic servitude.

So, the Moroccan government is a government that is guilty of trafficking in women and children, torture, supression of dissent, poor prison conditions, and the arrest and roundup of hundreds of so-called terrorsts. Guess where they learned the latter trick from.

From the London Times article, the Europeans have learned that there is a regular flight pattern of American flights between Guantanamo Bay and Morocco as well:

A recent inquiry into rendition by the Council of Europe, led by Dick Marty, the Swiss MP, highlighted a pattern of flights between Washington, Guantanamo Bay and Rabat's military airport at Sale.

French intelligence and diplomatic sources said the most recent such flight was in the first week in December, when four suspects were seen being led blindfolded and handcuffed from a Boeing 737 at Sale and transferred into a fleet of American vehicles.

The normally compliant media is angry and up in arms:

While much of the media is said to have been infiltrated by the DST, a few publications that dare to question official policy have accused the government of allowing Morocco to become "the CIA's dustbin".

And this anger from the media reflects the anger at the Americans from the Moroccan people:

The presence of minders made asking questions around Ain Aouda almost impossible, but at a restaurant adjoining a newly built mosque nearby, elderly men supping mint tea while they watched the African Nations Cup were clearly angry about the project.

"We've seen nothing but Americans for five months," complained one wizened figure before being told by his friends to be quiet.

This is nothing new for the Moroccan government. Given the fact that Rumsfeld is visiting there, Morocco must be the new poster boy for democracy breaking out in the Middle East. They have a systematic record of human rights violations, dating back over 30 years. Here are some examples:

Hundreds of disappearences in Western Sahara:

For two decades Amnesty International has documented and campaigned against human rights violations in Western Sahara. Following Moroccos annexation of Western Sahara in 1975, hundreds of Sahrawi men and women were arrested and disappeared. More than 300 of these disappeared were released by the Moroccan authorities in June 1991, after up to 16 years in inhuman conditions in secret detention centres where scores of them died.

To date their families have not been able to find out where their relateives are buried, and these deaths have not been recognized by the authorities. In the same year some thiry Moroccans were also released after 18 years in the the secret detention centre of Tazmamert.

AI notes that the disappearances continue today.

Human Rights Watch reports child labour is rampant:

In some ways Samira M.'s situation, described above, is better than that of many other Moroccan child domestics. Some studies estimate that almost a third of child domestics begin working before their tenth birthdays, making Samira. M. relatively old when she first started work. She also had significantly more education than most child domestics, having completed part of seventh grade before her parents withdrew her from school because her family needed the additional income of a full-time job after her brother became unable to work. A 2001 study of child domestics in Casablanca found that more than 83 percent had never attended school and were illiterate. Samira M.'s age and her education may have made her somewhat better able to protect herself from abusive employers, although they also may have contributed to her family's assessment that she was "old enough" and "educated enough" to be sent to work. "Other children in the family go to school," she told us. "I work because I am the oldest girl."

In many other important ways, Samira M. is typical of the current and former child domestics Human Rights Watch interviewed. The majority worked fourteen to eighteen hours per day, without breaks, seven days a week, for salaries between 0.4 dh to 1 dh ($0.04 to $0.11) per hour. In comparison, Morocco's minimum wage for other forms of non-agricultural work is 9.66 dh ($1.07) per hour, and working hours are limited to forty-four hours per week and ten hours per day. Like Samira M., almost no child domestics received their salaries directly or had a say in how that money was spent, leaving them effectively working for food, lodging, and in some instances small amounts of pocket money or clothing.

Also like Samira M., the majority of domestics we interviewed experienced physical and psychological abuse from their employers, including beatings and threats of beatings for working slowly or performing chores badly. In two instances domestics we interviewed also reported sexual harassment by employers or employers' family members.

Human rights advocates are being arrested and tortured:

Currently detained in Laayoune Civil Prison, the seven human rights defenders - Aminatou Haidar, Ali-Salem Tamek, Mohamed El-Moutaouakil, Houssein Lidri, Brahim Noumria, Larbi Messaoud and H'mad Hammad - were arrested between June and August 2005. They face charges of participating in and inciting violent protest activities and belonging to an unauthorized association, charges which they deny. Two of them allege that they were tortured during questioning.

A Spanish human rights group reports that hundreds of migrant workers are being arrested and starved by the Moroccan government.

For more information:

Read The Performance of Human Rights in Morocco by Susan Slyomovics; she documents Moroccan human rights abuses back to 1956.