Driss Benzekri (1950–2007) was a
Moroccan left-wing political and human rights activist.
Benzekri was born into a modest
Berber family in Aït Ouahi, near
Khémisset
Khemisset (Amazigh language: Zemmur, ar, الخميسات) is an Amazigh town in northern Morocco with a population of 131,542 recorded in the 2014 Moroccan census. It is situated on the A2 motorway between Rabat (81 km) and Meknès (57&nbs ...
. Quite young, he participated in the short-lived
marxist-leninist movement
Ila al-Amam and was arrested in 1974, at the age of 24, and sentenced in 1977 to 30 years in prison. He was freed in 1991 and then studied law and linguistics in
Rabat and
Paris
Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), ma ...
. He specialised in Berber language and co-authored in 2007 a book called ''Amazigh. Voyage dans le temps berbère''.
In 1999 he founded together with other victims of the
Years of Lead the Justice and Truth Forum (Forum Vérité et Justice, FVJ). In 2003 he was asked by the Moroccan King
Mohammed VI Muhammad VI may refer to:
* Muhammad Imaaduddeen VI (1868–1932), sultan of the Maldives from 1893 to 1902
* Mehmed VI (1861–1926), sultan of Ottoman Empire, from 1918 to 1922
* Mohammed VI of Morocco
Mohammed VI ( ar, محمد الساد ...
to preside the newly created
Equity and Reconciliation Commission
The Equity and Reconciliation Commission ( ar, هيئة الإنصاف والمصالحة; - IER) is a Moroccan human rights and truth commission created on January 7, 2004, when King Mohammed VI signed a '' Dahir'' (royal decree). The commiss ...
, which gathered testimonies from hundreds of former political prisoners or their families and allocated indemnizations to them. He achieved enormous popularity and was even classed in a newspaper poll the most popular Moroccan, with the king Mohammed VI coming second.
In 2005, after the IER was closed, he took the direction of the Consultative Council of Human Rights, an official institution. Although he was sometimes criticized for associating so closely with the government, most independent human right organizations paid homage to his work and achievements.
The Washington Post, May 22, 2007
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He died on May 20, 2007 in Rabat, Morocco of complications of a stomach cancer.
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Benzekri, Driss
1950 births
2007 deaths
Deaths from stomach cancer
Ila al-Amam (Morocco) politicians
Moroccan prisoners and detainees
People from Khemisset
Moroccan politicians
Deaths from cancer in Morocco