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SHADOW OF IMPUNITYTORTURE IN MOROCCO AND WESTERN SAHARA41neighbourhood in Fes. He told Amnesty International following his release that judicial policeofficers stripped him naked and raped him with a baton during his first day in garde à vuedetention. He stated in a written account as well as in a filmed account to fellow studentsthat officers urinated into his mouth, forcing him to swallow the urine shortly following hisarrest and before his transfer to a police station. He also alleged that during interrogation,officers suspended him by his wrists, ankles and knees in the “roast chicken” and “airplane”positions, burnt his right leg with a cigarette, beat and insulted him while questioning himabout his activism within the UNEM and VDB student groups. On the fourth day, he alleges,officers forced him to sign a document that they did not allow him to read, pushing him tothe ground and attempting to strangle him while threatening to further torture him. 63He stated that the court refused to exclude his interrogation report, without adequatelyinvestigating his allegation that it had been coerced. He said he was medically examinedtwice during his 11-month pre-trial detention but was not informed of the findings, whichwere also not transmitted to his lawyer. The Criminal Chamber at the Fes Court of Appealsconvicted him in April 2012 but released him on account of the time he had already servedin detention. 64Others told Amnesty International that police officers threatened to rape them during garde àvue detention, including five Sahrawi men and a then 17-year-old boy arrested on 9 May2013 on suspicion of violent protest during a demonstration for self-determination inLaayoune five days earlier. One of the men, Mohamed Ali Saidi, 27, said officers threatenedto rape him among other forms of torture and ill-treatment during his three-day detention. Hetold Amnesty International:“They threatened to rape me with a bottle – they brought the bottle in front of me. It was aglass bottle of Pom’s [popular Moroccan apple-flavoured soft drink].”He also said:“They whipped the soles of my feet with ropes, while I was suspended in the roast chickenposition, and they also dipped our feet in iced water… While I was suspended in the roastchicken position, they put a towel in my mouth and choked me by pouring water up my nose.Then they poured urine. Then they… took my clothes off except my underwear, and whipped63“Morocco: comrade Mohamed Ghallod’s testimony about torture he was subjected to in prison”, 8June 2011, http://www.marxy.com/africa/morocco/torture-comrade-mohamed-ghaloud090911.htm;“Speech by comrade Mohamed Ghallod” in six parts, YouTube, 28 May 2012 – Part 1:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JMTSl5axWHU; Part 2:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gIuB76KjY14; Part 3:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DgierwBwe7s; Part 4:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5LMb7VXFvcg; Part 5:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ynv2dMibfaU; Part 6:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZLHGjjK28KI64Interview, Fes, 11 June 2013 and written statement dated 8 June 2011.Index: MDE 29/001/2015 Amnesty International May 2015

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