page_title: Forced disappearance
section_title: Morocco / Western Sahara
hierarchical_section_title: Forced disappearance / Examples / Morocco / Western Sahara
caption_attribution_description: English: Malika Oufkir at the 2006 Texas Book Festival, Austin, Texas, United States.
context_page_description: In international human rights law, a forced disappearance occurs when a person is secretly abducted or imprisoned by a state or political organization, or by a third party with the authorization, support, or acquiescence of a state or political organization, followed by a refusal to acknowledge the person's fate and whereabouts, with the intent of placing the victim outside the protection of the law.
  According to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, which came into force on 1 July 2002, when committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack directed at any civilian population, a "forced disappearance" qualifies as a crime against humanity and, thus, is not subject to a statute of limitations. On 20 December 2006, the United Nations General Assembly adopted the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance.
  Often, forced disappearance implies murder. The victim in such a case is typically abducted, illegally detained and often tortured during interrogation, and ultimately killed, their body concealed after the fact by the individuals or organization responsible for their death.
context_section_description: Several Moroccan Army personnel suspected of being implicated in the 1970s coups against the King were held in secret detention camps such as Tazmamart, where some of them died due to poor conditions or lack of medical treatment.
  The most famous case of forced disappearance in Morocco is that of political dissident Mehdi Ben Barka, who disappeared in obscure circumstances in France in 1965.
  In February 2007, Morocco signed an international convention protecting people against forced disappearance.
  In October 2007, Spanish judge Baltasar Garzón declared the competence of the Spanish jurisdiction in the Spanish-Sahrawi disappearances between 1976 and 1987 in Western Sahara (mostly controlled by Morocco). There have been charges brought against some Moroccan military heads, some of them currently in power as of 2010, such as the head of Morocco's armed forces, General Housni Benslimane, charged for the detention and disappearance campaign of Smara in 1976. Garzón's successor, Judge Fernando Pablo Ruz, reopened the case in November 2010.
caption: Moroccan writer Malika Oufkir, daughter of General Mohamed Oufkir, is a former "disappeared" in Morocco
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