MOROCCO: FIRING SQUADS SILENT- BUT DEATH HOVERS

Morocco's death row prisoners, some 150 inmates, are living in sub-human, "life-threatening conditions", according to leading NGOs and rights activists. "The general situation of Morocco's prison inmates, especially those on death row, is absolutely catastrophic and inhumane," Mohamed Kouhlal, a writer specialising in human rights issues, told IPS. Conditions on death row were "even worse than execution itself", added Al El Ouakili, a well-known writer and death penalty abolitionist campaigner. Kouhlal and El Ouakili are two of several activists who have written investigative reports recently on the situation in Moroccan jails. These have been confirmed by photographs smuggled out of prison showing inmates packed into cells like sardines. On July 8, ten NGOs also issued a joint statement calling on the government to introduce urgent reforms for the health and welfare of the prison inmates, especially those on death row. The NGOs acted after the general delegate of the penal services Hafid Benhachem refused to meet them to discuss their "grave concerns". Earlier, the Moroccan Prisons Watch, an independent organisation monitoring prison conditions, issued its own critical report on conditions in Moroccan jails. It highlighted the under-funding by the authorities which made it impossible to provide the minimum essential sanitary conditions for the health of inmates. "The ever-present threat of execution for those on death row is also causing serious mental illnesses," Kouhlal added.