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UN Special Rapporteur on Torture asserts Morocco uses torture against Saharawi civilians

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New York, Oct, 2012 (SPS) - UN Special Rapporteur on Torture, Juan Mendez,  said yesterday before UN Security Council that Morocco uses excessive torture against human rights defenders and political prisoners in Western Sahara.        

 

"There is a lot of evidence of excessive use of force," said Juan Mendez to reporters after representing his report before UN Security Council  .

 

UN Special Rapporteur on Torture gave details of his recent visit to Morocco and occupied Western Sahara as the UN Security Council debates demand expansion of MINORSO mandate to include human rights monitoring.

 

"Whenever there is a sense that national security is involved, there is a tendency to use torture in interrogation. Difficult to say how pervasive or how systematic it is, but it happens frequently enough that the government of Morocco should not ignore the practice," Mendez added.

 

He stated that Morocco “is far from being able to boast that torture has been eliminated".

 

"They were no different in Western Sahara from Morocco," said Juan Menedz .

 

"We found the same kind of evidence that mistreatment in interrogation, for example, is always close to happening, especially when there is excessive use of force in demonstrations and they happen both in Western Sahara and in Morocco", he underlined.

 

“Permanent monitoring is always much more helpful than a once-in-a-lifetime kind of visit that a special rapporteur can do", said UN Special Rapporteur on Torture. (SPS)

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