On January 30, the parliamentary groups of Podemos Canarias and Nueva Canarias defended during the Plenary Session of the Parliament of the Canary Islands an initiative in which the Government of the Canary Islands was urged to express its rejection of the Human Rights violations that, repeatedly, occur in the Rif region. This debate took place before a broad representation of the Popular Movement of the Rif or Hirak of the Rif.
The peaceful mobilizations in this neighboring region demanding social and economic improvements and measures to combat corruption have been met with disproportionate repression by the Moroccan authorities.
More than 400 people have been arrested, including the leaders of the Popular Movement of the Rif, activists on social networks and journalists, to simple participants in the demonstrations.
Many of these people, including minors, have been subjected to torture and other degrading treatment (we are told of beatings, deprivation of clothing, sexual violations and insults, among others) and have been tried without the minimum procedural guarantees.
Especially serious is the situation of Nasser Zefzafi, spokesman and leader of the Popular Movement of the Rif. Zefzafi, who has been subjected to prolonged detention in solitary confinement for more than 650 days, spending more than 22 hours a day in an individual cell without any human contact.
In his trial, he requested during his deposition before the Casablanca Court of Appeals that his mother leave the room to be able to relate to the judge the torture and sexual assaults to which he was subjected. This court has sentenced him to a prison term of 20 years.
What can we do from the Parliament of the Canary Islands in the face of human rights violations that occur just 100 kilometers from our land?
The truth is that the main mechanisms, both political and legal, to address this problem are in the hands of the State Government.
However, the Government of the Canary Islands, in addition to being able to make the appropriate declaration of rejection of these events, has the capacity to request the State Government to act.
This is an issue that is linked to the distribution of powers between the State and the autonomous communities, which, although it limits the actions of the latter, does not completely curtail it.
Therefore, in that initiative we requested the Government of the Canary Islands to in turn urge the State Government to launch political and legal actions to try to stop the Human Rights violations in the Rif.
What has been the result of the debate? The legitimate demands of the Rif people have been met with the shameful and embarrassing rejection of the Canarian Coalition-PNC and the Popular Party.
Violations of Human Rights, wherever they come from, should have the same treatment by all political parties that consider themselves democratic, silencing or negotiating with those who violate them makes them accomplices.
The hypocrisy and lack of democratic commitment that these formations have been practicing in the Canarian and state institutions reaches limits that threaten all logic, not only parliamentary, simply all logic, which is nothing more and nothing less than an exercise of political coherence.
How can I explain to the people of our land that the institution that represents us all does not reject Human Rights violations?
Equally shameful has been the abstention of the PSOE and the Mixed Group. Looking the other way when you have before you the representation of a neighboring people suffering fierce repression is an exercise in double morality unworthy of parties that carry the term socialism in their acronyms.
I feel a lot of sadness and indignation, I love the Moroccan people, I have great friendships in that land and it especially hurts me that our governments leave the Rif population abandoned and to their fate, as it hurt when in Spain they left us isolated for 40 years, suffering the Franco dictatorship.
Today I can only feel ashamed and apologize to the Rif people and, especially, to their representatives present in Parliament.
Because the Human Rights of no people, whether they are five thousand kilometers away or one hundred, are not negotiable.
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By María del Río Sánchez, President of the Podemos Canarias Parliamentary Group, Candidate for Parliament for Lanzarote
