Un body says morocco’s ier should be model for other countries

By Madison on mar 08, 2010

Geneva – The UN Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances has commended the actions carried out by Morocco’s Equity and Reconciliation Commission (IER), stressing that this experience « should serve as a model for other countries. »

    The commission was created in 2004 to seek out-of-court settlement of human-rights abuses committed between 1956 and 1999. It  identified the victims of those abuses who were compensated accordingly.

    In a report on its mission to Morocco last June, presented on Monday in Geneva at the 13th session of the UN Human Rights Council, the group hailed in particular « the IER’s gender mainstreaming approach, its public-hearing practice, its efforts to establish truth on serious human-rights violations and its creative approach to redress, which distinguishes between individual and collective redress. »

    « The working group deems the IER process in Morocco a remarkable endeavour which would serve as a model for other countries of the region or other regions of the world,” the report says.

    The group said Morocco has, over the past years, opened up to democracy by devising mechanisms to promote and protect human rights, and can, thus, “be considered a true model for the Middle East countries.”

    The report noted that “it is quite unusual that a country goes back so farther in its history,” adding that some victims who met the group lauded the process.

    It said the IER’s decision to develop collective redress has been unanimously welcomed.

source: map