The fruits Moroccans have reaped from the February 20 movement are countless. An example in point was the royal pardon for scores of political prisoners, including Mustapha Mouatassim, Mohammed Marouani, Mohammed Amine Regala, Alaa Badella Maa-El Ainin and Abdelhafid Sriti. Needless to say, many other political prisoners are still in jail, and nobody knows why they were excluded from the royal pardon.
Most Moroccans do not know the real reasons behind the release of more than ninety political prisoners. That’s because the Moroccan government did not give any reasons why King Mohamed VI decided to pardon those political prisoners.
For some political analysts, it’s the Feb. 20 youths that forced the North African monarchy to release those political prisoners, while for others, their release was among the promises king Mohamed VI gave to the Moroccan youths who took to the streets on Feb. 20 to call for deep political reforms, including a king who reigns, but does not rule.
Furthermore, the absence of the real whys and wherefores has led many Moroccan columnists and human rights activists to give different reasons why those detainees were released. What those reasons had in common was the fact that their arrest and imprisonment was a big mistake. And that’s why they harshly criticized the government for not apologizing to those political prisoners and bringing to trial all those who decided to send them to prison ever though there was no solid evidence supporting the charges that were directed against them.
I do add my voice to theirs. King Mohamed VI did only half of the job when he decided to pardon those detainees. The other half he should have done was to order the government to write a letter of apology to those political prisoners and to bring to justice all those who lie behind the unfair trial they received. Why should king Mohamed VI have done this? One reason is that he pledged in his speech delivered on March 9th that he would bring about most of the reforms the Feb. 20 youths are calling for, including an independent judiciary.
For me, as for others, pardoning political prisoners without punishing all those who use the judiciary to settle an account with their enemies or to serve their own interests means that an independent judiciary in Morocco is still a pie in the sky.
الجزيرة توك لا تعبر عن شبكة الجزيرة ولا العاملين فيها، والموضوعات المنشورة لا تعبر بالضرورة عن رأي الموقع
