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• Open letter by Moroccan, African and European associations: "In Morocco, the rights and dignity of men and women are scorned in the name of the protection of Europe's borders" (1)

Open letter by Moroccan, African and European associations: "In Morocco, the rights and dignity of men and women are scorned in the name of the protection of Europe's borders" (1)

01 January 2007

Shortly over a year since the tragic events of autumn 2005, sub-Saharan migrants in Morocco, who are the victims of securitarian policies pursued by the European Union and its "partners", continue to be persecuted, purely in the name of the protection of Europe's external borders.

On December23, 2006, the Moroccan forces for the maintenance of public order carried out some large-scale raids in the working class neighbourhoods in Rabat where a large number of migrants live. Dozens of police officers and agents from auxiliary forces entered the lodgings and indiscriminately arrested the sub-Saharans who were found there (including pregnant women and children) in order to take them to the Algerian border in a desert region near Oujda. In these raids at least 240 arrestations were made.

On December 25, 2006, 40 migrants from sub-Saharan Africa were arrested in Nador and taken to the border in the same conditions.

On December 29, 2006, 140 people who were stopped in Lâayoune were on their way to Oujda. On December 31, 43 people from this group were taken to the Algerian border.

Fifteen days after the start of these arrests, around 200 people were able to return to Oujda while the associations and activists on the ground in the region were left without news of around a hundred migrants who were abandoned in the border region at the time of the wave of arrests of December 23, or who were on board of the bus that left Lâayoune on December 29. According to the statements made by migrants who were abandoned on the border, most of them were stripped of their possessions (mobile phones, money) and many of them had their identity documents (passports, UNHCR certificates) confiscated or torn. Some of them suffered violence and some women were the victims of kidnappings and rapes. Many are physically very weakened, and a woman of Congolese origin who was five-months pregnant has lost her child.

These operations have been presented by the Moroccan authorities as falling within the framework of the conclusions of the governmental conference on migrations in Rabat on July 10 and 11, 2006. Therefore, they took place outside of any legal framework, including the one provided for in Moroccan Law 02-03, and without any respect for either the international texts signed by Morocco or the principles and rights recognised to migrants at this very conference. Thus their sole purpose is to demonstrate Morocco's "goodwill" in the struggle pursued by the European Union against the so-called "illegal" immigration, even when this struggle is carried out without respect for any international and national texts concerning immigration.

In fact, according to several witness statements and observations by activists on the ground:

" The arrest operations took place based upon "appearance" without assessing the situation of the persons. The arrests and deportations to the Algerian border were carried out collectively, which contravenes the Convention on the rights of migrant workers and their families (art. 22).

" At least a third (over 50) of the people who returned to Oujda are refugees recognised by the HCR in Rabat, or asylum seekers whose application is being examined; others had travel documents and visas that were in order, and some women, of whom at least three were pregnant, and children (currently seven, of whom one is physically disabled) also suffered the same fate. These arrests thus violate the Geneva Convention on the status of refugees that forbids, notably, the refoulement of asylum seekers and refugees (art. 33) and the Convention on the protection of migrant workers and their families, both of which have been signed by Morocco, just as Moroccan law forbids the deportation of pregnant women, children, refugees and asylum seekers (arts. 26 and 29 of law 02/03).

" Apart from the previous observations, the arrests and deportations to the border were carried out outside any legal procedure (such as an appearance before a j