Morrocan Human Rights Council Demands Respecting Right to Peaceful Protest

Morrocan Human Rights Council Demands Respecting Right to Peaceful Protest
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Morrocan Human Rights Council Demands Respecting Right to Peaceful Protest

Morrocan Human Rights Council Demands Respecting Right to Peaceful Protest

The National Council of Human Rights (CNDH) in Morroco, in a report on the protests that had erupted in Jerada in 2017, called for respecting the right to peaceful protests and demanded launching an investigation on the wounded protesters during the March 14 protests. It also demanded that the investigation’s results be published, stressing the need to review the code of criminal procedure and the texts relevant to it.

The report also considered the ban on unauthorized protests or those that no organized group had given notice of to violate the right to peaceful protest. The Council also demanded the criminalization of illegitimate use of violence to guarantee freedom of expression and assembly and the right to peaceful protest, as well as implementing pressing economic and social housing demands.

Concerning trials of detainees, the report revealed that detainees said that they had signed judicial police reports without having read them, and some disputed Royal Gendarmerie records of their confessions, as they had not signed the reports presented to the court, but the statements recorded in the statement book only.

According to the Council’s report, the court’s verdict relied heavily on judicial police reports, which include the accused’s confessions and judicial police inspection reports indicating detainees’ participation in the protests despite the authorities’ ban decision and photos and videos of the protests and the statements of a number of victims, as well as health statements given by the victims.

Concerning the trials, the Council reiterated its call for the need to review the code of criminal procedure and strengthening the defense’s pre-trial role, through its presence in the preliminary research stage and the incorporation of the right to appeal all decisions that involve the deprivation of liberty, especially pre-trial detention.

The Council issued a statement explaining that the report, Written between December 2019 and February 2020, aims to monitor, track, and record the events and evaluate their effects on rights and freedoms, based on the international conventions ratified by Morocco and the county’s constitutional and legislative safeguards. It takes a human rights approach to the proposals it submits on how to address the Jerada protests’ demands and prevent the recurrence of similar incidents and drawing conclusions to prevent their recurrence in similar contexts.

The Jerada incident erupted after two brothers died while extracting coal in an informal mine, spurring demonstrations and marches demanding better living conditions and job opportunities for the city’s residents.

For her part, the Council’s president, Amina Bouayach says that protests should have been an opportunity to think about building a proactive national strategy for managing economic, social, and environmental transformations in the city of Jerada and similar areas in such a way that makes the moving into a post-mining phase inevitable.



Berri to Asharq Al-Awsat: Resolution 1701 Only Tangible Proposal to End Lebanon Conflict

Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri and US envoy Amos Hochstein in Beirut. (AFP file)
Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri and US envoy Amos Hochstein in Beirut. (AFP file)
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Berri to Asharq Al-Awsat: Resolution 1701 Only Tangible Proposal to End Lebanon Conflict

Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri and US envoy Amos Hochstein in Beirut. (AFP file)
Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri and US envoy Amos Hochstein in Beirut. (AFP file)

Politicians in Beirut said they have not received any credible information about Washington resuming its mediation efforts towards reaching a ceasefire in Lebanon despite reports to the contrary.

Efforts came to a halt after US envoy Amos Hochstein’s last visit to Beirut three weeks ago.

Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri dismissed the reports as media fodder, saying nothing official has been received.

Lebanon is awaiting tangible proposals on which it can build its position, he told Asharq Al-Awsat.

The only credible proposal on the table is United Nations Security Council resolution 1701, whose articles must be implemented in full by Lebanon and Israel, “not just Lebanon alone,” he stressed.

Resolution 1701 was issued to end the 2006 July war between Hezbollah and Israel and calls for removing all weapons from southern Lebanon and that the only armed presence there be restricted to the army and UN peacekeepers.

Western diplomatic sources in Beirut told Asharq Al-Awsat that Berri opposes one of the most important articles of the proposed solution to end the current conflict between Hezbollah and Israel.

He is opposed to the German and British participation in the proposed mechanism to monitor the implementation of resolution 1701. The other participants are the United States and France.

Other sources said Berri is opposed to the mechanism itself since one is already available and it is embodied in the UN peacekeepers, whom the US and France can join.

The sources revealed that the solution to the conflict has a foreign and internal aspect. The foreign one includes Israel, the US and Russia and seeks guarantees that would prevent Hezbollah from rearming itself. The second covers Lebanese guarantees on the implementation of resolution 1701.

Berri refused to comment on the media reports, but told Asharq Al-Awsat that this was the first time that discussions are being held about guarantees.

He added that “Israel is now in crisis because it has failed to achieve its military objectives, so it has resorted to more killing and destruction undeterred.”

He highlighted the “steadfastness of the UN peacekeepers in the South who have refused to leave their positions despite the repeated Israeli attacks.”