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SHADOW OF IMPUNITYTORTURE IN MOROCCO AND WESTERN SAHARA131. ABUSED UPON ARREST‘I discovered that we get tortured in our owncountry.’Khadija*, a student who reported being tortured following her arrest by security forces during a campus protestKhadija* is a soft-spoken, first-year student at Sidi Mohamed Ben Abdellah University in Fes.Not an activist herself, she happened to walk past a protest at the university’s Dhar ElMehraz campus that was being violently dispersed as she was returning to her dorm roomafter class on 29 March 2014. She described to Amnesty International her arrest and tortureby police officers:“On my way back from class, three CMI riot police came up to me from behind and trippedme. I fell and they tore my headscarf off and hit me. Then they dragged me by the legs, facedown, to their van. Inside, about 10 more officers were waiting. That’s when they hit me thehardest. During half an hour or longer, they beat me, called me a prostitute, insulted mymother and threatened to rape her…“At the police station, they put me in an office with the door open. Police kept walking inand out, pulling me one way and the other, threatening to rape me, trying to pull my clothesoff… Some said: ‘If we see you at university again, we’ll rape you’. Each time a new officercame in, I hoped he would have some compassion, but he would just threaten to rape me orinsult me while others laughed…”Khadija said that police officers released her without charge at 9pm that night. Left withoutmoney, she had no option but to risk her safety and walk from the city centre to the studentdormitories alone at night.“I discovered that we get tortured in our own country, and police officers don’t respectwomen. They say Morocco is a democratic country with human rights and freedoms. But Ifound out that’s not at all the case. Those who don’t have money have nothing.” 2Khadija’s story is far from isolated. Yet, torture is a criminal offence under Moroccan law.Over the past decade, Moroccan authorities have increased the force and reach of theprohibition on torture. Before 2006, torture was prohibited under Article 399 of Morocco’sPenal Code but not defined. The Penal Code was later amended to include a specific2Interview, Fes, 2014.Index: MDE 29/001/2015 Amnesty International May 2015