As the world observes the 2023 Indigenous Peoples Day, several African human rights activists, including Nasser Zefzafi, who is serving a 20-year prison sentence for peaceful activism on behalf of his Indigenous Amazigh community in Morocco, remain in detention.
Development Diaries reports that Zefzafi and many other activists in the country have been mercilessly prosecuted, imprisoned, and tortured.
Zefzafi was involved in organising demonstrations in his hometown of Al Hoceima.
Human Rights Watch (HRW) has also documented attacks on journalists, many of whom were jailed for reporting what is perceived as critical of King Mohammed VI or the security services.
In November 2022, Mohammed Ziane, an 80-year-old veteran lawyer who represented Zefzafi, was arrested and sent to prison, in apparent retaliation for his human rights work.
It is understood that Zefzafi and other Hirak leaders expressed socioeconomic demands that received national and international attention, and transcended class divisions, without violence.
He was arrested on 29 May, 2017, subjected to torture and other ill-treatment by police officers and held in prolonged solitary confinement for nearly a year between September 2017 and August 2018.
There are reports, according to sources close to Zefzafi, that his health continues to deteriorate in prison as authorities prevent him from receiving sufficient medical treatment.
Freedom House’s Freedom in the World 2023 report ranked Morocco as ‘partly free’, with an overall score of 37 out of 100.
By virtue of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, every country, including Morocco, agreed that they will abide by certain standards in the treatment of individual human beings, including protecting the right to life, freedom from torture and slavery, and right to non-discrimination.
Development Diaries, therefore, calls on the government of Morocco to adhere to the provisions of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights which the country ratified in 1979 and ensure the release of Zefzafi.
Photo source: Reuters
