The Moroccan Observatory of Prisons (OMP) criticized the government whose 2021-2026 program ignored “penitentiary issues, both at the level of legislative and administrative initiatives”.
In its annual report presented last Thursday in Rabat, the OMP also deplored the delay in penal reforms. “The OMP considers that the main approach to a real reform of the penitentiary system involves reforming the ordinary and military penal arsenal, in particular the reform of the Code of Criminal Procedure, the preliminary investigation and the preparatory one, the examination by a judge (the examining magistrate) and the trial, to measures for the execution of sentences in penitentiary establishments”, reads the report which was presented in the presence of representatives of the media and human rights organizations of Man.
The OMP report also underlined that the Covid-19 health crisis has had a serious impact on the right of access to justice and on the foundations of a fair trial, stating that since April 2020, the judiciary has launched remote trials, which has caused delays in the processing of cases and undermined the right to go to court, especially for detainees.
“In this respect, the OMP reiterates its call to suspend this procedure because of its contradiction with the conditions of a fair trial as required by international human rights law and to provide the necessary means for the respect for the right of detainees to access to justice”, insisted the OMP.
This NGO indicated that nearly 95% of the prison population had benefited from vaccination once morest Covid-19 until the end of November 2021, while specifying that “the question of the vaccination of prisoners has experienced a certain number of constraints the most important of which were the refusal of certain detainees to be vaccinated, the problem of detainees without a residence permit or identity document or under a false identity. Added to this is the problem of obtaining the vaccination pass for inmates vaccinated within the prison establishment”.
Regarding hunger strikes, the report revealed that “the total number of hunger strikes in 2021 amounted to 1,158 compared to 1,011 in 2020, and 1,382 in 2019. 746 inmates went on hunger strike less than a week, 320 for a period ranging from a week to a month, while 92 detainees began a hunger strike for more than a month”, specifying that the OMP closely followed a certain number of hunger strike cases during the year 2021, visiting and listening to detainees on the reasons for their strike movements, as well as their main demands, while warning of the risks to their health.
In addition, the number of deaths during the year 2021 reached 204 cases once morest 213 in 2020, or 2.29% of the prison population. 97% of the deceased are men. “Given that human rights organizations cannot carry out research and investigations, and in the absence of an official announcement on the results of the investigations launched by the judicial authorities, the death cases still remain the subject of concern and concern as long as the true reasons for these deaths are not known,” noted the OMP.
In 2021, the OMP received 212 complaints from detainees. More than 32% of grievances relate to access to health care, i.e. 14% more compared to 2020, and 16% more compared to 2019; nearly 24% relate to torture and ill-treatment, down 4% from 2020; more than 19% of complaints relate to the transfer of detainees, i.e. 2% less compared to 2020; nearly 18% relate to visitation rights; more than 12% relate to hunger strikes; and other grievances concern requests for pardon, conditions of detention, the pursuit of studies, communication with the family.
In this report (134 pages), the OMP called, among other things, for the revision of the Criminal Code and the Code of Criminal Procedure with a view to harmonizing their provisions with international standards relating to the rights of detainees, enshrining the right to a fair trial guaranteeing the right to life and all other rights; the adoption of legal provisions requiring pre-trial detention to be an exceptional measure; reducing the phenomenon of pre-trial detention by setting up a system of judicial control instead of this measure, by abolishing custodial sentences for a certain number of offences, and by adopting alternative sentences to custodial sentences freedom in the Criminal Code and the Code of Criminal Procedure.
Mourad Tabet
