Morocco Lays Out Human Rights Action Plan

According to Magharebia, Morocco’s National Human Rights Council (CNDH) has introduced “an action plan to integrate human rights principles into the kingdom’s national policy.” CNDH Secretary-General Mohamed Sebbar said, ”The general goal of this plan, which includes several measures concerning various aspects of human rights, is to establish general integrated policies based on the values of democracy and human rights, and to conduct an evaluation of the country’s general policies in the past years, some of which were not integrated.” Inter-ministerial Delegate for Human Rights Mahjoub El Hiba stated Morocco “has become a model in some fields of reform, especially those related to human rights.” The four principle aspects of the plan include good governance and democracy, with an emphasis on human rights, equality, transparency and the re-building of relations between citizens and state bodies; economic, social, cultural and environmental rights; the rights of marginalised categories; and legal protection, which includes constitutional rights guarantees and judiciary reforms.

Borzou Daragahi and Noah Browning write that the leaders of the Justice and Development Party (PJD) Abdelilah Benkirane and Saadeddine Othmani “have become the focus of their country’s unique experiment in political reform, initiated by King Mohammed VI in response to pro-democracy protests.” The authors say the “ascent [of the PJD] could result in a serious challenge to the established order … [because] while hailing the legitimacy of the monarchy … they must play to their economically anxious lower and middle-class base.”