Amnesty calls for information on missing persons

Amnesty International urged Moroccan authorities on Thursday, to end the "suffering of hundreds of Moroccans and Sahrawis still awaiting news of relatives who disappeared at the hands of security forces in previous decades". "It is cruel and inhuman that a woman whose husband was arrested in front of her during the 1960s or 1970s should still be trying to obtain an answer from the authorities on whether he continues to be held in secret detention or was tortured to death," the organisation said in a news release. "It is high time those answers were given," it added in a release marking the the International Day of the 'Disappeared'. The organisation however welcomed initiatives undertaken by the Moroccan authorities in recent years to improve the human rights situation, including the establishment by King Mohamed VI in July 2000 of an arbitration commission to decide compensation for material and psychological damage suffered by victims of "disappearance" and their families. Compensation has so far been awarded in several hundred cases, "however, there can be no substitute for truth and justice", the organisation said. "On this day, Amnesty International adds its voice to families of the 'disappeared' and calls on the Moroccan authorities to conduct prompt, thorough, independent and impartial investigations into each individual case and bring those responsible to justice." Amnesty said the issue of "disappearances" had marked the history of Morocco/Western Sahara in the past four decades and remained one of the most painful and unresolved human rights problems. More than a thousand people, the majority of them Sahrawis, "disappeared" between the 1960s and 1990s at the hands of Moroccan security services. Several hundred Sahrawis and Moroccans were released in the 1980s and 1990s after spending up to 18 years in secret detention centres, Amnesty said. In June and July this year, the organisation sent a mission to Morocco and Western Sahara to research the "disappearances". The delegates met dozens of families in the Moroccan towns of Rabat and Casablanca and Western Saharan towns of Laayoune and Smara.