Methodology

This report is based on the study of selected trials conducted between 2008 and 2013. Human Rights Watch observers attended some sessions of four of them. We also examined written verdicts and case files and interviewed defense lawyers, officials of the Ministry of Justice and Freedoms, and other pertinent sources of information, including the defendants in some cases. We also reflect in the report, and reprint in Appendix I, statements provided to us by the government concerning these cases. However, for the most recent of the six cases, the one involving the February 20th Youth Movement protesters, Human Rights Watch did not formally request official comment and received none.

Human Rights Watch wrote to Minister of Justice Mustapha Ramid on January 12, 2012, informing him of our work on fair trials and requesting a meeting. We did not receive a reply. However, representatives of the Interministerial Delegation for Human Rights received us in Rabat on January 23, 2012.

While representatives of Human Rights Watch were in Morocco in mid-November 2012, Minister Ramid informed us that he could receive them on November 19. Because its representatives would no longer be in Morocco on that date, Human Rights Watch wrote a letter proposing to return in December if he was available to meet and also outlining the interim conclusions of this report. We received no reply.

Human Rights Watch trial observers encountered no obstacles in entering courtrooms and observing trials, with four exceptions relating to a single trial: on November 20, 2012, December 18, 2012, and January 8, 2013, police denied our representative entry to the Rabat Criminal Court of First Instance, where he had identified himself to them as Human Rights Watch and explained that he had come to observe the trial of Camara Laye.[2] Each time, the police told him he needed permission from the Ministry of Justice and Freedoms. Our representative managed to enter on the second occasion when defense lawyers escorted him inside.  On May 14, 2013, security offices at the entry to the court denied entry to two representatives of Human Rights Watch who had come to hear the verdict in the Laye case.

With regard to the Gdeim Izik trial before the Rabat Military Court, our observer attended the sessions on February 1, 9, 10, 13 and 14, 2013, but not those on February 8, 11, 12, 15 and 16. For the dates when he was absent, the observer obtained an account of the proceedings from defense lawyers and other trial observers. Human Rights Watch interviewed several members of the defense team about the case, including Noureddine Dhalil in Casablanca on March 19, 2012, Mohamed Fadhel Leili, Mohamed Boukhaled, Mohamed Lahbib Rguibi, and Lahmad Bazaid in El-Ayoun on June 23, 2012, Mohamed Lahbib Rguibi on September 13, 2012, in Rabat, and Mohamed Messaoudi in Rabat during February 2013.