18 Hirak protesters handed prison sentences

After seven months in prison Casablanca Court of Appeal in Morocco has sentenced 18 protesters to sentences ranging from eight months to four years in prison after being accused of “rebellion, unauthorised demonstrations, armed assembly and humiliation of security agents”.

Hundreds of activists have been arrested in a government crackdown on protests in the turbulent Rif region in northern Morocco over the last few months, which erupted after a fishmonger was crushed to death a year ago. Many are angry at the lack of development and funding in the region compared to the rest of the country.

A further 19 Rif activists, including 11 minors, were placed in pre-trial detention for their participation in a march organised last Sunday in the city of Imzouren, south of Al-Hoceima.

“At least 410 people are currently in prison, some have been arrested at home, many have already been sentenced, sometimes with long prison sentences of up to 20 years, while others, including minors, are in prison; six months for some”, Amnesty International said last month, calling on authorities to release them.

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At the conclusion of the 11th hearing of the Hirak trial held yesterday at the Casablanca Court of Appeal lawyer Abdelkarim Elmoussaoui told HuffPost Morocco that the defence has completed the presentation of all its remarks and critiques after a series of hearings of more than 10 hours each that began on 21 November.

“Our pleadings focused on procedural flaws and irregularities we found”, said lawyer Mohamed Aghnaj. The defence reiterated its request that all telephone and video recordings referred to as evidence should be forwarded to the court.

The defence also placed special emphasis on torture reported by detainees at the beginning of the investigation: “A complaint had been lodged on this subject, but it has never been heard and we have [referred] it to the prosecutor’s office, because it is not up to the court to deal with it”, Aghnaj explained.

“We’ve talked about it a number of times, and for us there’s no question about torture, the detainees testified before the Attorney General and then during the investigation”, lawyer Abdelkarim Elmoussaoui said.

The reported cases of torture are alleged to have taken places during the arrest of the detainees and during their transfer from Al-Hoceima to Casablanca.