Morocco: Call for national and international opinion from the family of the political prisoner Hassan Koukou

Version français ici.

We relay this news, translated in french by the Action and Support Committee for the struggles of the Moroccan people. We express our complete solidarity with the political prisoners in Morocco.

Our son Hassan KOUKOU is currently at the regional hospital in the city of Midelt in a critical and extremely serious condition. He can no longer move and speaks with great difficulty, after the hunger strike he began, and continues to carry out since November 13, 2015 (the date from which he started to drink more water and take sugar) to defend his dignity and claim for his legitimate rights to continue his education, receive visits, to be neat, to have access to the press and lectures, and to be transfered from the jail of Midelt.

As you know, our child lives in inhuman and harsh conditions since in this prison, the administration piles up to 37 prisoners in the same cell; it also subjected the detainees to all forms of humiliation and torture each time they claim legitimate rights, just as our child struggles to obtain favorable conditions for the continuation of his studies (library access, possibility to receive the programs published by the Ministry…).

We recall that our son was arrested December 17, 2012 and was sentenced to 5 years in prison. He spent the first 2 and a half years of his sentence in Meknes prison, where he had already conducted several hunger strikes (the longest stretched over a period of 110 days) to finally obtain several promises on the part of prison officials, accredited by a representative of the National Council of Human Rights, but they were never kept.

Quite the contrary! It was at this time that our son was moved to Midelt to be separated from his comrades and his situation has worsened with a total discount of all of his most basic rights.

We now call on the national and international public opinion for everything to be undertaken so that vital assistance be given to our son,who is lying on his death bed and forgotten, in absolute and morbid silence of all social actors - from the media to the so-called defenders of human rights.

We declare that the consequences of the extremely serious and critical situation in which our son is in, borne entirely by the general delegation of the prison administration and the administration of the jail of Midelt in particular, who will have to answer one day for their crime of failure to assist a person in danger.

We also declare that our son is determined to continue his legitimate struggle and that we stay and remain at his side to give him our full support. Finally, we call on all forces of justice, all activists to support our son by making known as widely as possible his battle and to take action in support and solidarity before its too late.

December 5, 2015

Translated by the Action and Support Committee for the struggles of the Moroccan people to french.