MOROCCO. CALLS FOR ABOLITION OF THE DEATH PENALTY

June 2, 2008: two recently discovered mass graves and a still-secret list of five other places where victims of other alleged extra-judicial killings lie have shocked Moroccan rights activists and raised questions about the genuineness of the abolition of the death penalty.
"The abolition of the death penalty is required," Driss Lagrini, professor of public law at the Alkadi Iad University in Marrakech, said. Some 500 crimes could still be punished by the death penalty which was used "from time to time", he noted. The state needed to show clearly that "there has been a turning of the page of history".
"The state needs to show a serious will to abolish the death penalty," Abdeljawad Achehbar, founding president of the Communication and Reform Association (CRA), told IPS. He agreed that the discoveries of the mass graves illustrated how grossly the right to life had been violated in the recent past and those guilty had never been brought to justice. Guarantees were now needed that this would never happen again. The call for the official abolition of the death penalty was also echoed by the journalist and writer Mohamed Nabil. "Abolition is necessary, but it is not enough." (Sources: IPS, 02/06/2008)