Morocco's harder line on security challenges reforms

The trial of 50 suspected terrorists highlights the struggle between security and human rights.

By Jill Carroll | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

from the April 9, 2007 edition

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SALE, MOROCCO - One of the accused leapt onto a bench and shouted over the glassed-in defendants' box: "We didn't do it! We were made to sign confessions."

Some of his codefendants – all charged with belonging to the Islamic militant group Ansar al-Mahdi and plotting attacks in Morocco – joined in the display of defiance. They chanted "Allah akbar," or God is great.

The courtroom ruckus last month was sparked by the judge's decision to once again delay the group's trial, as not all of the defendants had been appointed lawyers. The 46 men and four women have been jailed since late July and August. The new trial date is May 25.

Even as it undertakes some of the most ambitious political and social reforms in the Arab world, Morocco's efforts to improve its human rights and judiciary have hit a pothole. How big is uncertain. The kingdom now faces a rising militant threat – perhaps with Al Qaeda influence – prompting a new emphasis on security over individual rights. That shift worries reformers, and even counterterrorist experts.

"The reform process appears to be stalled, in part because of the growing strength of the Islamists [who] are expected to perform well in this year's elections," says Haim Malka, deputy director of the Middle East program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.

Analysts and human rights groups charge that Morocco's use of tactics such as mass arrests inevitably lead to the regular incarceration of innocent people. They worry too that putting innocent people – especially young men who may sympathize with militant groups – into crowded prisons where they could be subjected to torture and abuse will only further radicalize them, eventually creating a broader and more determined terrorist network in Morocco.

"The threat of militant cells in Morocco seems real, but the major question is to what extent is the regime using the arrests and trials of militant Islamists to roll back some of the reforms they promised, and which some believe have spun out of control," says Mr. Malka.

Two years before he detonated a suicide belt in an Internet cafe in a Casablanca slum on March 11, killing only himself, Abdelfatah Raidi wrote in a letter dated 2005 that he was tortured in prison and was kept in substandard conditions. He sent the letter to Abderrahim Mouhtad, president of the group an-Naseer, which advocates for the rights of Islamist prisoners. Mr. Mouhtad, who works on behalf of about 200 prisoners, says that nearly 10 percent of his clients report incidents of torture in letters that are smuggled out by the prisoners' families.

After the string of coordinated attacks in 2003 in Casablanca, Mr. Raidi was arrested during the massive security sweeps through his neighborhood, a slum on the fringes of the city called Sidi Moumen. The area had also been home to the 14 men who carried out the 2003 attacks. Raidi's letter was sent just before Raidi was released under a royal pardon.

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