Tazmamart Prison

‘For almost two decades, the Moroccan authorities have strongly denied the existence of a detention centre for slow death on its territory, far in the heart of the Sahara, called Tazmamart.’

-- Ahmed Marzouki

 ‘Tazmamart’ is now known worldwide as one of the world’s worst centres of enforced disappearances around the world. The former secret detention centre of Tazmamart is located inside an army barracks, in a small village, between Midelt and Errachidia, 20 km from the city of Er-Rish, towards Karama. It has been cited by many public international reports and discussed on several media outlets. This secret facility was used for detention between Aug 8, 1973 and Sept 15, 1991. After the military personnel convicted of the Skhirat coup were sentenced to two years in jail and released, the remaining 58 soldiers at the central prison in Kenitra were moved to the secret prison of Tazmamart, on 7 Aug 1973. The deportation was supervised by a private company of the Royal Gendarmerie. The detainees at this facility remained here until only 28 people were still alive and they were released on September 15, 1991, after 18 years and a few weeks in jail. A group of 17 Africans, according to Mohamed El-Rayyes’ estimates, were inside the secret detention centre with these military detainees for a period of time as well. There remains to be conflicting news about their nationalities and the reasons for their detention. In addition to the Africans, three Bourequat brothers were arbitrarily detained at the same detention centre from 1981 to 1991.

Many national and international human rights organisations, in addition to the families of victims of enforced disappearance in Tazmamart publicized the news and worked to shatter Tazmamart’s secrecy. 1989 was a turning point in uncovering the secrets of Tazmamart. The detention center was accidentally discovered and filmed that year while a French film channel in a plane was working on a project in the region. A year later, a Member of Parliament Mohamed Bensaid Ait Idder of the Organisation of Action for Democracy and the People (OADP), a political party, publicly inquired about the fate of the soldiers who disappeared from Kenitra prison. Then, Tazmamart was no longer a secret place. During the colonial era, the security and strategic military concern led to investing the site to establish surveillance sites. A military information centre was established in the nearby area of ​​Er-Rish. After independence, the security and military concern again sparked off the establishment of a military barracks in the village of Tazmamart far in the Sahara, by both the French and Moroccan military authorities. The barracks constitutes a fortified site and a checkpoint by virtue of its proximity to the Algerian-Moroccan border.

Tazmamart, whose inhabitants predominantly descend from the Berber/Amazigh communes of Ait Saghrouchen, rejects categorically to be referred to as the ‘former secret prison’; it is a memory of a place and a society that refuses the stigma of hell that is still attached to the people of Tazmamart village. It is a memory of a place that was carefully chosen to play different roles where the surrounding ethnic minorities were unlikely to unite and take control of the area. A military barracks was initially set up from tents and then moved to a new barracks that was later extended by the addition of two new buildings. These two buildings formed the secret detention centre of Tazmamart which included several military personnel who were on trial for the failed coup attempts: (The Skhirat events of 10 July 1971, and the Royal Boeing incident on 16 August 1972). A former prisoner in Cell 10 at Tzamamart, Ahmed Marzouki described the facility as a long, dark and narrow corridor with iron bars on the top. The cells were formed into two rows that stood along two parallel lines with similar measures, facing one another, with the exception of Cell 15, which stood in the middle, opposite the entrance to the building and was twice as long as the other cells. There were 15 cells on the row facing the entrance and 14 ones on the opposite side. A narrow box of reinforced concrete, each cell was 3x2.5 metres long and wide, respectively, with a height of about 4 metres. The cells barely saw the sun light, and lay there in complete darkness day and night, well except for a fading light that sneaked in at mid-day through a tiny little hole in the ceiling, reflecting a small circle of dimmed sunlight on the floor, barely enough to see the fingers on one’s hands.

In the name of his surviving and late friends, prisoner of Cell 10 wrote: ‘For almost two decades, the Moroccan authorities have strongly denied the existence of a detention centre for slow death on its territory, far in the heart of the Sahara, called Tazmamart. Encompassed by extremely horrendous, pitch-black dark-filled, tomb-in-the-making lifeless cells, this piece-of-hell was home to 58 commissioned and non-commissioned officers who were buried alive for their unintended involvement in two failed coup attempts (the Skhirat events of 10 July 1971, and the Royal Boeing incident on 16 August 1972). After more than 28 years of detention under horrific, unspeakable circumstances, Tazmamart finally ejected 28 half-dead prisoners after swallowing and burying inside its boiling sands the bodies of 32 victims.