Prison Administration Slams HRW, AI over Gdeim Izik Detainees’ Groundless Allegations

Morocco’s Prison Administration (DGAPR) blasted, on Wednesday, over the groundless allegations laid down in a joint statement by Human Rights Watch (HRW) and Amnesty International (AI), in connection with the detention conditions of inmates jailed as part of Gdeim Izik events.
In a statement, the DGAPR clarified that all detainees enjoy the rights to which they are entitled under the law. This includes cells with natural ventilation and lighting, family visits, hot meals, warm baths, exercise time under the sunlight, television sets and landline telephone service.
Concerning health care and studies, the DGAPR explained that the said inmates receive the necessary medical care inside the prison’s infirmaries or in external hospitals if needed, adding that they also enjoy the right to pursuing their studies and are provided with all necessary means to prepare for their exams and monographs in order to graduate while serving their sentences.
It said that these prisoners are treated in accordance with the law, in a manner consistent with human dignity, and on an equal footing with other inmates. Furthermore, and on humanitarian grounds, these inmates are allowed further flexibilities in terms of number of visitors, and visit duration and frequency when receiving family members from remote areas.
As for the alleged hunger strikes, described as “continuous” by the said joint statement, the DGAPR pointed out that these inmates rarely notify their intention to stage a hunger strike and never truly observe one. Such fake hunger strikes are used to draw attention and win over associations that are hostile to Morocco so as to deceive public opinion.
Regarding the claims that the said prisoners are placed in “arbitrary solitary confinement”, the Prison Administration clarified that they are put in individual cells adjacent to one another and upon their request.
Concerning ill-treatment allegations, the DGAPR said that this is baseless slander contained in the false complaints filed by the prisoners or spread by their families via different means or through their affiliates abroad to promote misinformation and propaganda.
For transfer demands to prisons in the southern provinces of the Kingdom, they were not fulfilled given the concerned inmates’ sentence length, it noted, explaining that four of them are detained in penitentiaries located in these provinces, while four others are in prisons situated in a bordering province. Several of them are transferred for a fixed period of time to correctional facilities in the southern provinces given the age and health status of their relatives.
The said joint statement is clearly biased insofar as it does no more than peddle the groundless allegations of the inmates’ families, and keeps silent about the people the latter killed and defiled, it concluded.