HUMAN RIGHTS DILAOGUE, WESTERN SAHARA, AND

C O N F I D E N T I A L RABAT 000140

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

STATE FOR NEA/MAG AND DRL/NESCA

E.O. 12958: DECL: 02/13/2018
TAGS: PHUM PGOV MO
SUBJECT: HUMAN RIGHTS DILAOGUE, WESTERN SAHARA, AND
INTERNAL POLITICS

Classified By: DCM Robert P. Jackson for reasons 1.4 (b) and (d).


1. (C) SUMMARY: In the second annual session of the
U.S.-Morocco bilateral human rights dialogue, our senior GOM
interlocutor used the occasion to criticize the existence of
separate human rights reports for Morocco and Western Sahara.
The Moroccans also complained that the USG distorted the
government's human rights record in the Sahara, "which is the
same" as anywhere else in the Kingdom, they claimed. The
Moroccans told us the Government was working on a revised
press code and held open the possibility that jail terms
might be eliminated from the range of penalties for
violators. Our GOM hosts also denied that there were "red
lines" limiting freedom of expression, asserting that Morocco
only draws the line on threats to public order. END SUMMARY.


2. (C) On January 30, then Charge and PolOffs represented
the Embassy at our second annual bilateral human rights
dialogue meeting, hosted by MOI Director General Mohyieddine
Amzazi and joined by representatives of the Ministries of
Foreign Affairs and Justice. The four-hour dialogue,
initiated by the Government as a means of providing the
Embassy information during the preparation of the human
rights report was delayed for months due to the Ministry of
Foreign Affairs, reorganization that accompanied the
formation of the El-Fassi government.


3. (C) DG Amzazi expressed indignation over the USG practice
of producing separate Human Rights Reports for Morocco and
Western Sahara reports, noting that the International
Religious Freedom Report on Western Sahara is, by contrast,
an addendum to the Morocco report. Commenting on the
problems the report identified in the Western Sahara, Amzazi
was adamant that the same human rights standards are applied
in Laayoune as in Tangiers, an assertion we hotly disputed.


4. (C) Amzazi asserted that a new press code is being
hammered out "on the basis of broad consensus" between
government and journalists. He emphasized that no
journalists were imprisoned in 2007 and described jail terms
as an "unenforced" aspect of the press code law. He allowed
that the government might eliminate criminal penalties as
long as (onerous) civil arrangements are in place to regulate
journalists. (NOTE: We understand that positive elements in
last year's draft that might have been acceptable to the
media community were removed or replaced at MOI behest. With
no consensus, the bill is now in limbo. END NOTE.)


5. (C) On freedom of expression, MOJ Office Director
Abdenebbaoui maintained there are no "red lines" but rather
inviolable "principles" that govern Moroccan society. Amzazi
insisted the GOM is getting tougher on corruption with an
ever increasing stream of high profile prosecutions. We
noted continuing credible reports of harassment, arbitrary
arrest and beatings of persons suspected of separatist
sympathies in Sahara. We provided the names of four repeat
human rights offenders and recent written complaints from
local citizens, which they promised to investigate. They
maintained the GOM line that freedom of expression was
allowed until it crossed the line into threats to public
order. (COMMENT: Subsequent negative response from the MOJ
on repeat offenders has not been convincing. END COMMENT.)


6. (C) In a subsequent lunch, Amzazi slammed the Polisario's
"bellicose" threats to return to war, saying they called into
question the point of the Manhasset process. He complained
that the USG spurns the Royal Consultative Commission on
Sahrawi Affairs (CORCAS),"the originator of the whole
autonomy initiative," and vowed that the GOM would never
grant NGO status to CODESA, an apparently pro-Polisario human
rights NGO, because of its rejection of Moroccan sovereignty.
No group with a goal contrary to Moroccan territorial
integrity could legally be allowed to register, he said,
unless the group modifies its charter.


7. (C) When the conversation turned to domestic politics,
Amzazi offered his personal opinion that a healthy, if messy,
process of realignment and consolidation of the Moroccan body
politic was underway. All the major parties are cleaning
house and reorganizing themselves. He said (his former boss)
Fouad Ali El-Himma's new Movement of All Democrats offered
promise to build a new national political consensus around a

progressive development agenda.


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Riley