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Fri, November 7, 2003 |
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Death sentences in Morocco
terrorism cases
http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/?id=7154
Two Islamic
fundamentalists sentenced to death for preparing terrorist acts, murdering
official, stealing weapons.
Abdelouahab Rabii and Hamid Slimani were sentenced in Rabat late Thursday for
preparing acts of terrorism, murdering an official, and stealing weapons from an
army barracks.
The prosecution said Rabii had admitted to strangling a justice ministry
official with Slimani's complicity, and to participating in theft of weapons
from a barracks in the town of Taza with the aid of a soldier who had allegedly
taken seven Kalashnikov rifles for use against "Jewish interests."
A military tribunal has already sentenced Rabii to 20 years in absentia.
The two men condemned to death and 12 other defendants who received jail
terms were charged with criminal association, endangering public order and
attacks on internal state security.
Sixteen people have now been sentenced to death under Morocco's new
anti-terrorism laws adopted after suicide bombings in Casablanca in May which
claimed 45 lives, including those of 12 bombers.
Meanwhile a Casablanca court sentenced two Moroccan men identified as
"theorists" behind an Islamic fundamentalist group to 30 and 20 years
respectively.
The prosecution had demanded the death sentence on Abdelwahab Rafiki and
Hassan Kettani, saying they had been major figures behind the banned Moroccan
Islamic extremist group Salafia Jihadia.
Salafia Jihadia has been accused by Moroccan investigators of masterminding
the series of suicide attacks in Casablanca on May 16.
The prosecution said that "although Hassan Kettani and Abdelwahab Rafiki were
not active on the ground, they were the brains behind the kamikaze cell that
carried out the five suicide attacks in Casablanca."
In five simultaneous attacks, booby-trapped cars exploded on the evening of
May 16, outside international and Jewish targets in downtown Casablanca,
Morocco's economic hub.
The attacks instantly killed 41 people, mostly Moroccan, including 12 of the
Islamic suicide bombers. Four others died later of injuries.
The Casablanca court Thursday also sentenced 30 further people to jail
sentences ranging up to one life sentence.
The sentences are the latest in a series passed by Moroccan courts following
the May 16 attacks.
Almost 50 life sentences and other heavy terms ranging up to 30 years have
been handed down.
Among those given life was French Islamic extremist Pierre Robert.
The sentences are not subject to review except before the highest appeals
tribunal.
Justice Minister Mohamed Bouzoubaa said this month a total of 906 suspected
Islamic extremists had been arrested in the wake of the Casablanca bombings but
warned that "the peril is still there".
The indictment in Thursday's sentences did not claim any direct connection
between the defendants and Salafia Jihadia.
By Dominique Pettit - RABAT
Moroccan courts have
sentenced two Islamic fundamentalists to death for murder and preparing
terrorist acts, and passed heavy jail sentences on two fundamentalist preachers
said to be the brains behind suicide attacks in May.
Why did 'Al Qaeda' commit terrorist
attacks in Morocco in May this year -
Same as Indonesia: facilitate introduction of new
anti-terrorism legislation :
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Morocco passes anti-terror law | ||
All 89 legislators present in the upper house on Tuesday voted in favour of the bill, which broadens the definition of terrorism and increases the number of offences punishable by death. The measures were withdrawn for amendment in April, following strong criticism from human rights groups, reports the French news agency, AFP. On 16 May, five bombs near Western and Jewish targets in Casablanca, killing 43 people. | ||
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/2943112.stm
Morocco
rushes anti-terror legislation after attacks
Fri May 30, 2003,
by: Andrew ELKIN
http://www.alternatives.ca/article682.html
The suicide bombings that rocked Casablanca on May 16 also shook the foundations of Moroccan society. Although the targets seem to have been chosen for their Western and Jewish links, the victims were mostly Moroccan. On May 21 the Moroccan government responded by pushing its proposed anti-terror law back into Parliament for a hastily organized vote."The government isn't doing anything to eliminate the problem of poverty, unemployment and hunger that are the seeds of extremism," said Mohamed El Boukili of the Moroccan Association for Human Rights (AMDH). "Instead they are attacking the freedoms we have won through civilized means."
The controversial anti-terror law gives police and security forces the right to hold suspects for up to eight days without access to a lawyer, to intercept telephone, Internet, and postal communications, and to search homes and businesses without warrants. More significantly, the law expands the definition of terrorism to include any disturbance of public order.
These powers are so flexible that they pose a greater threat to the civil rights of Moroccans than terrorism itself, AMDH President Abdelhamid Amine said. The shotgun vote on the anti-terror law gives an indication of how the advent of terrorism will affect Morocco's democratic process, which has been reforming slowly since the mid-90s. Those active in civil society, however, aren't conceding defeat.
"This battle is wide open," said Kamal Lhabib, a founding member of Alternatives du Sud and a representative of the Coalition of the Left. "We have to turn once again to a security system that supports democracy, to work on links with the average population and focus on issues like poverty and unemployment. This is the great challenge for the government right now."
According to Lhabib, the current rate of democratic reform is insufficient to counter the extremist threat. Corruption is still common and the parties in power are seen as self-serving, an impression which only helps to further the disillusionment of the average voter.
"We have to resist complicity in a political system that attempts to reinforce its own interests," Lhabib said.
The poor urban areas in and around Fez, Casablanca, Tangier, and Sale are breeding grounds for the Islamic fundamentalist movement in Morocco. Authoritarian Islamist groups have been on the rise for several years, but their most successful political vehicule is the Party for Justice and Development (PJD). In last Septem-ber's legislative elections, the PJD jumped from 9 seats to 42, becoming the third largest party in Parliament and the official opposition.
The young seem the most susceptible to the lure of extremism. An estimated 35 percent of Moroccan university graduates are unemployed, and in the poor city centres and shanty towns, where parents cannot afford to send their children to university, the jobless rate is much higher. Many youth lack even the most basic means of making a living, and the fundamentalist movements claim to offer a way out.
"Our culture is based on tolerance but these movements prey on the youth that have nothing else on offer," said Mohamed Benbouzid, director of the national youth association, Chouala.
The solution, Benbouzid said, is to create a political space for the sustainable development of Moroccan society in the rural areas as well as in the cities. "We have to work toward a society that is more democratic, because it is through democracy that we will overcome this threat."
Even before the attacks, however, Moroccan civil society had started working to counter the threat of extremism. In early May, after a debate between Islamists and representatives of the secular left, the Coalition of the Left was created in order to mount a formal and vocal opposition to fundamentalism in Morocco.
On May 17, the day after the attacks, a coalition of 18 associations and a political party were moving further in this direction. Drawing together Morocco's human rights and women's solidarity organisations, along with the Unified Socialist Left party, the group issued a statement noting that civil society had time and again signaled the problem of Islamic extremism and the politics of hate, racism, and anti-Semitism.
"If we are engaged in a system that limits itself to involvement in economic ventures rather than supporting the people, democracy will lose out," said Lhabib. "Unfortunately, we have already lost a lot of time in this respect."
The attempt to make up the lost ground started with a meeting of civil society associations and political parties in Rabat on May 23. A mass march against terrorism, extremism, and the anti-terrorism law took place on May 25 in Casablanca.
Moroccan civil society will need such open displays of support in the coming weeks. Breaking the cycle of terror and repression means taking on both a nervous government and the emboldened fundamentalists.
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Morocco's house of representatives passes
anti-terrorism bill The Moroccan House of Representatives unanimously approved on Wednesday
night an anti-terrorism bill tabled by the government. Only one member
abstained. Previous Stories:
I also suspect the 'free trade talks' between Morocco and the US had certain 'conditions' related to the war on terrorism ;) First Published 2003-03-25, Last Updated 2003-03-25
13:20:17
At the first round of discussions, in Washington on January 21, US
Trade Representative Robert Zoellick described the north African kingdom
as a "key partner in political and economic terms in the Middle East".
"On the sixth day of the war against Iraq, realpolitik continues," said
L'Economiste, noting that the second round of negotiations was initially
due to begin on Monday in Rabat, before the switch to Geneva.
King Mohammed VI last week said he was "deeply disappointed" at "the
choice to use force" against Baghdad, while from early March the country
saw massive, peaceful demonstrations to protest at US threats to wage war
on Iraq if Saddam Hussein did not disarm.
L'Economiste said that the Moroccan government was preparing for the
"post-crisis situation to safeguard its own interests".
After Jordan, Morocco could become the second Arab nation to seal a
free-trade agreement with the United States. |
The arrest in Morocco of a senior al-Qaeda recruiter known as "the Bear" is the latest in a series of breakthroughs for Washington.
US officials claim Abu Zubair is a close associate of Abu Zubaydah - al-Qaeda's former operations chief, now in US custody - and has a wealth of knowledge about the group's operations and cell members.
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2002/06/19/1023864455929.html
