20120120
Reuters
RABAT (Reuters) - Moroccan authorities should draft laws to criminalise the use of torture by some security officials, activists from a group of human right organisations said on Thursday.

The 14 groups, including Morocco's main AMDH humans right organisation and Amnesty International's local branch, noted that current legislation merely condemned torture and some officials practised it with impunity.

"Six years after Morocco drafted a law that condemns torture ... its practice is still effective and real," they said in a statement. "The use of torture extends to all parts of the country, creating many victims among youths, women and men in the streets and in police stations."

The groups did not document specific cases. However, they said torture varied from "excessive use of force against peaceful protests to brutal arrests and interrogations of arrested people sometimes in secret detention centres that escape any form of surveillance or control".

Moroccans staged a series of protests last year inspired by the Arab Spring, some of which the police broke up by beating demonstrators severely. While the protests have been modest compared with uprisings elsewhere in the Arab world, at least eight people have been killed in Morocco.

The rights groups said that Morocco's penal code lacked a clear definition of torture and suffered from a "weakness in criminal proceedings that guarantee justice in investigations into cases of torture", they said.

They also spoke of "continued impunity enjoyed by officials who use, or order the use of torture - in particular security officials and some Interior Ministry officials".

Asked to comment on the statement, a justice ministry official said the government "is aware of isolated cases of torture and will draft firmer laws against it", without giving a timeframe.