New York, June 21, 2013 (SPS) - Human Rights Watch has called on the Moroccan authorities to release Saharawi political prisoners, “Gdaim Izik” Group, or grant them a new and fair trial, in a report issued today Friday.
HRW insisted that “For the Gdeim Izik defendants, any retrials should take place before a civilian court rather than in the military court that first convicted them”
“If they are retried, the courts should examine the defendants’ allegations of torture regardless of whether physical traces of possible torture are visible, and ensure that no statement obtained through violence or coercion is admitted into evidence”, added the report
The International Human Right organization said that “Morocco’s courts are convicting defendants based on confessions they claim were obtained through torture or falsified by police”
It should be recalled that a group of 25 Sahrawi human rights activist had unfairly convicted by a military court in Rabat on February 16, 2013, following the dismantling of Gdeim Izik camp on the November 8, 2010 by force, by Moroccan troops and police when tens of thousands of Sahrawi civilians were protesting peacefully against the social, economic and political conditions which they kept living for more than 37 years under the illegal Moroccan occupation of their country.
The unjust sentences issued ranged between life imprisonment and 30 and 20 executed years in prison, as has been the release of two of them who were sentenced to two years in prison spent in pre-trial detention.(SPS)
090/091/TRA