The Temara interrogation center, also known as Temara secret detention center ( ar, معتقل تمارة السري), is an

extrajudicial Extrajudicial punishment is a punishment for an alleged crime or offense which is carried out without legal process or supervision by a court or tribunal through a legal proceeding. Politically motivated Extrajudicial punishment is often a fe ...

detainment and secret prison facility of

Morocco Morocco (),, ) officially the Kingdom of Morocco, is the westernmost country in the Maghreb region of North Africa. It overlooks the Mediterranean Sea to the north and the Atlantic Ocean to the west, and has land borders with Algeria t ...

located within a forested area of Rabat, Morocco. It is operated by the Directorate for the Surveillance of the Territory (Direction de la surveillance du territoire, DST), a Moroccan domestic intelligence agency implicated in past and ongoing human rights violations, which continues to arrest, detain and interrogate individuals suspected of involvement in terrorism-related activities outside of the Moroccan legal framework.

History

The first known detainee was Mohammed Mossadegh Benkhadra ( ar, محمد مصدق بن خضراء), in 1985 and spent 8 years in

detainment and without trial. And later when he was released 1993, he wrote the book "Tazmara 234", contraction from words

Temara Temara ( ar, تمارة; ber, ⵜⵎⴰⵔⴰ) is a coastal city in Morocco.Location information. It is located in the region of Rabat-Salé-Kénitra, directly south of Rabat on the Atlantic coast, in the suburban area of the capital. The city ...

and Tazmamart another popular prison and as a sign of continued abuse from the

Years of Lead (Morocco) The Years of Lead ( ar, سنوات الرصاص ''Sanawāt ar-Ruṣāṣ'', french: années de plomb) was a period of the rule of King Hassan II of Morocco, from roughly the 1960s through the 1980s, marked by state violence and repression agains ...

to present days. More recently, Zakaria Moumni claimed to have been tortured there when he was arrested in 2010.

CIA black site

The

Associated Press The Associated Press (AP) is an American non-profit news agency headquartered in New York City. Founded in 1846, it operates as a cooperative, unincorporated association. It produces news reports that are distributed to its members, U.S. ne ...

reported in August 2010 that, according to several current and former American officials, the US government possesses video and audio recordings of Ramzi Binalshibh, an accused plotter of the September 11, 2001 attacks being interrogated in a secret prison. The US officials told the AP that the prison was run by Moroccans but largely financed by the

CIA The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA ), known informally as the Agency and historically as the Company, is a civilian foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States, officially tasked with gathering, processing, ...

, which in late 2002 handed Binalshibh over to Moroccan custody and kept him there for five months. The Moroccan government has never acknowledged the facility's existence, despite allegations by freed Guantanamo detainee

Binyam Mohamed Binyam Ahmed Mohamed (, , born 24 July 1978), also referred to as Benjamin Mohammed, Benyam Mohammed or Benyam Mohammed al-Habashi, is an Ethiopian national and United Kingdom resident, who was detained as a suspected enemy combatant by the US Go ...

Temara interrogation centre and others that the CIA relied on Morocco as a secret proxy detention site during the period after September 11, 2001.

Torture of Detainees

Members of the DST are not considered to be part of the judicial police and as such should not arrest and hold suspects. Frequently reported methods of torture include beatings, the suspension of the body in contorted positions, and the threat of

rape Rape is a type of sexual assault usually involving sexual intercourse or other forms of sexual penetration carried out against a person without their consent. The act may be carried out by physical force, coercion, abuse of authority, or ...

or other

sexual abuse Sexual abuse or sex abuse, also referred to as molestation, is abusive sexual behavior by one person upon another. It is often perpetrated using force or by taking advantage of another. Molestation often refers to an instance of sexual assa ...

of the detainees. Other reported methods include rape by the forced insertion of objects such as bottles into the anus, sleep deprivation, cigarette burns, and the application of live electrodes to the body. Several

non-government organizations A non-governmental organization (NGO) or non-governmental organisation (see spelling differences) is an organization that generally is formed independent from government. They are typically nonprofit entities, and many of them are active in ...

such as Amnesty International and

Human Rights Watch Human Rights Watch (HRW) is an international non-governmental organization, headquartered in New York City, that conducts research and advocacy on human rights. The group pressures governments, policy makers, companies, and individual human r ...

have denounced reports of torture at the facility.

References

{{Human rights in Morocco Political history of Morocco History of Western Sahara Political repression Human rights abuses in Morocco Torture in Morocco Black sites Prisons in Morocco

History

CIA black site

Torture of Detainees

See also

References