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Morocco's Secret Detention Centre of Témara Under Investigation
This article is an attempt to answer the following questions: "Why do human rights activists insist on describing Temara detention center as a secret center?" "What are the legal basics of this description?" "What are the limits of the Moroccan Intelligence officers' jurisdiction"? "What are the causes of the tension between the DST "Directorate for the Surveillance of the Territory" and the human rights groups?" "Does Abduction or abduction- like practices do exist"?
Human rights groups and free media means are still use the adjective "Secret" to describe the Temara detention center, as mentioned in a human rights report by Amnesty International about Morocco.
The AI's report has been in the center of the political scene, for firstly: the reports points out a secret detention center in which torture is brutally practiced. Second: the AI's reports usually affect the national and the international public opinion. Third: for the last few years Moroccan government has taken important positive steps in this regard, unfortunately, such steps were distorted by the content of the AI's report.
Worthy-mentioning that the Moroccan government sent its response on the report contents. However some human rights interested and observers said that the response was not adequate. The defense of the Morocco's delegation to Geneva was feeble and lacked legal and political experience. The raised questions in this context are: what are the legal basis for the human rights groups to name Temara detention center a "Secret" detention center? and What is the legal position of those who order or perform the alleged actions of questioning and torture practiced against a number of presumed Islamists and others as they stated?
Temara
Undoubtedly, human rights groups realize that Temara detention center is run by the Directorate for the Surveillance of the Territory (DST) which is legally administered by the National Security Department. The Temara building is flagged by the national flag, and in front of it stand the Urgent Intervention Forces' men "Al-Semi", which apparently negates its secrecy characteristic alleged by the human rights groups. Moreover, human rights groups base on the assumption that the DST is neither authorized to arrest suspects, nor permitted to detain or question them. But they are authorized to do so as they are judicial police officers, i.e. they have the right to question the detainees during the legal limits garde a vue (pre-arraignment detention). According to Dohair 1974 that regulates the situation of the DST, the same procedures in promotion, tribunal, moving, etc, are applied on the DST officers as well as the judicial officers.
Plus, the pre-arraignment detention is legally limited to 48 hours for the regular crimes, and can be renewed once by the public prosecution permission, and 96 hours for the internal or external State Security crimes, and can be renewed twice if it relates to a terror action and also by the permission of the public prosecution.
According to Morocco's Criminal Procedures Code, the judicial police officers are: the national security general director, security commanders, police general inspectors, police officers and chiefs, Royal Guard officers, and the guards who are in charge of a guard team or a guard center for the period of this charge. There are also the Pashas and the leaders. Police inspectors with the national security department who spent at least 3 years in this position may also be authorized as judicial police officers, upon a joint decision by the minister of justice and the minister of interior. Likewise, the royal guards who spend at least three years in the Royal Guard service and officially appointed upon a joint decision by the minister of justice and the governmental authority of national defense.
Workers also may be considered judicial police officers in exceptional cases related to the internal or the external state security and for a limited period of 24 hours prior to referring their detainees to the judicial officers. Some officials with the sectors of customs and forests may also be authorized as judicial police officers.
Crown Prosecutors
It is natural that the main function of a crown prosecutor is to obey the order of the superiors, in addition to conducting some field visits to the detention places within their jurisdiction area. The Ministry of Justice has recently issued a periodical to crown prosecutors argues them to activate their authorities, particularly after the raise of many political and human rights voices that protest certain practices inside the detention places. Apparently, those crown prosecutors are being reluctant in performing their duties for many reasons, in the past these reasons were of political nature, due to the general political climate in the country at that time, as all the detention decisions in the past were political decisions taken by the power holders, the crown prosecutors were just tools to give the superficial courts a legal image. However, at the present time, these reasons are no longer exist.
So that the carelessness could be for two reasons, the first is the wideness of their jurisdiction areas and the big number of the detention facilities and detention places they supervise. The second is that they avoid encounter with police officers, either those who belong to the general police or the DST, because the latter may write a negative report on the performance of the crown prosecutors, which may harm their careers or positions, particularly, where the judicial authority lacks impartiality, independence and credibility. In addition to the widespread use of bribe and connections and else-like, these are generally known things and were mentioned many times in the international and national human rights reports.
Political Movement Comes First
Moroccan human rights movement still not adequately independent from the political movement, which is considered as its source. Mindful to the link between the political movement and the human rights movement. What we would like to assert that the political movement would identify the function of the human rights movement. Moroccan human rights groups have legal experts, who are aware of the fact the Temara detention center is not a secret place of detention, its administrators are officials with the national security department and carry its identity. But human rights groups insist on using the word "secret" just for practicing political pressure. As if they stab the state on its back , because they have baseless judgments.
Tamera detention center case is an example of the rule of the political movement comes first before the human rights movement, when it was shown at the top of events and became the material of the many national and international human rights reports, though Moroccan human rights activists realize that it is not Tazmamart Prison, nor Akdez prison, nor Makouna castle nor even Derb Moulay Cherif. But they attempt to libel Morocco's human rights image in an attempt to pressure on the government.
Temara detention center is a clear example of the human rights movement's strategy in addressing the government. We may mention another example, which is defending the terrorists of the bloody May 16. Notably, Moroccan human rights movement had not ever issued a press release pointing out the 80s and the 90s Islamists detainees, but the human rights groups became now the official speaker of those Islamists, that is because the guide of the Justice and Charity Group, Sheikh Abdel Salam Yassen was in the same prison with important human rights figures, one of them is Abdel Rahman Ben Emro, former chairman of the Moroccan Association for Human Rights, and prior with the detainees of the Muslim Youth Group (al-Shabiba al-Islamia) led by Sheikh Abdel Kerem Moute'a.
Vagueness
Law experts prefer to use the expression "detention", while human rights defenders use the word abduction, despite the wide clear difference between the two words. Definitely, judicial police officers who arrest certain person to question him in the charges brought against him, specially in the charges that relate to the internal or the external state security are not required to summon him first, this is common in all the countries of the world, because, after collecting all the relevant information, judicial police officers determine whether the person in regard is to be arrested or questioned or not. the importance is of summoning and questioning in peaceful ways or by force if they had to. Using force is rather legal, when the person under arrest resists, this is what is called in the whole world the permitted violence. For example, the detentions in France and the United States likely do not use other process than what is mentioned above, except in the civil cases.
Moroccan Government shall put an end to its inexcusable silence and present facts, considering that the general department of national security is legally under the authority of the Ministry of Interior. Why not opening the detention center of "Temara" which name has became more known than Tazmamart prison to the media in order to display the truth for the public opinion and be away from political false allegations.
Training
May be the fear of the Moroccan human rights groups is a result of the absence of real guarantees to utter applications of laws. On the top of their fears is the extent to which DST officers respect the legal limit of the pre-arraignment detention and not to extract confessions by force. This is what induce them to talk about abduction, though it does not exist, as long as the detainee's full information are recorded before being referred to the crown prosecutor, who, in turn, keep the pre investigations of the judicial police. This fear is understood to guarantee the application of laws, though it is not enough, for the privacy of the files kept by the state security department justifies its actions that human rights groups may consider illegal.
Since the 90s, Morocco has started integrating human rights culture within the police institution in order to make police officers cope with that development. Human Resource and Training Department taught and is still teaching the police institute graduates the human rights principals in order to guarantee humane performance of police officers and therefore crystallize the new concept of police, which is "the Citizen Police" . This is done in the context of a new philosophy aims at brining criminal justice and near police. Though hampered by many factors, the first of which is the reality of crime in Morocco, the second is the lack of finances and the lack of solid receiving entities and finally the weak of the connection with either the media means or the human rights groups.
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The published articles reflect the author's opinion, either individual or organization, it does not necessarily present the Network's opinion
