To the Editor:
Morocco’s “dismantling” of another supposed international terrorist network in 2008 led to the imprisonment of all 35 defendants, including six Moroccan political figures whose connection to any such activities was widely doubted. The court based its guilty verdicts on highly suspect confessions, as happens routinely when Morocco arrests suspects under its 2003 antiterrorism law.
These confessions often come from people who are illegally arrested, held in secret detention, mistreated and sometimes tortured, and, without being able to consult a lawyer, pressured to sign confessions they are prevented from reading.
No one should doubt the real threat of terrorism that Morocco faces, but the evidence that the authorities mistreat terror suspects in ways that compromise their right to a fair trial is no less in doubt.
Eric Goldstein
Washington, Jan. 6, 2011
The writer is deputy Middle East and North Africa director for Human Rights Watch.
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To the Editor:
Your report of recent arrests in Western Sahara does not convey the real cause of social unrest and instability there: Morocco’s illegal occupation; its violation of human rights; its theft of the territory’s natural resources; and the socioeconomic disenfranchisement of the Saharawi people.
Any suggestion of “violent opposition” by the Polisario Front is without basis.
For 20 years, the Polisario has shunned violence. We have kept faithfully to the cease-fire agreed under United Nations auspices in 1991, despite the appalling failure by the international community to deliver the referendum on independence promised as part of that deal.
In April 2010, the United Nations Security Council declared the situation in Western Sahara to be unacceptable. All we ask for is the referendum promised in 1991. This is the only pathway to a stable, democratic and prosperous Western Sahara.
Mhamed Khadad
New York, Jan. 7, 2011
The writer is United Nations coordinator and negotiator for the Polisario Front.
