Ali Bourequat is a Moroccan/
Tunisia
Tunisia, officially the Republic of Tunisia, is a country in the Maghreb region of North Africa. It is bordered by Algeria to the west and southwest, Libya to the southeast, and the Mediterranean Sea to the north and east. Tunisia also shares m ...
n businessman who was
secretly arrested and incarcerated for years by the Moroccan government in the infamous secret prison
Tazmamart.
[Alain Brossat, Jean-Louis Déotte, ''La mort dissoute: disparition et spectralité'', Harmattan, 2002
, p. 82] He is a French citizen now living in the United States. He is the son of an
Alaouite princess who worked in the royal court. He wrote a book on his ordeal.
Personal life
Bourequat is the son of an
Alaouite princess and a
Turkish-Tunisian businessman who was also a security chief and helped found Morocco's police and Intelligence service. His father was also a close friend of
Mohammed V and so Ali and his brothers grew up in the inner circle of the court of King
Hassan II
Hassan, Hasan, Hassane, Haasana, Hassaan, Asan, Hassun, Hasun, Hassen, Hasson or Hasani may refer to:
People
*Hassan (given name), Arabic given name and a list of people with that given name
*Hassan (surname), Arabic, Jewish, Irish, and Scotti ...
.
[
]
Imprisonment
In 1973 he was, with his two brothers Midhat and Bayazid, abducted by the Moroccan secret police, torture
Torture is the deliberate infliction of severe pain or suffering on a person for reasons including corporal punishment, punishment, forced confession, extracting a confession, interrogational torture, interrogation for information, or intimid ...
d and jailed without trial for reasons he claims unknown even to himself.
He was originally incarcerated in facilities close to Rabat and in 1973 succeeded in escaping along with the mutineers of the 1971 failed coup but was recaptured several days later. In 1981 he was transferred to the Tazmamart prison, a secret detention facility with a 50% death rate. His family was given no information on his whereabouts, consistent with the practice of the Moroccan regime in cases of "forced disappearance", and he was never charged with a crime.
In 1991 he was released after pressure from human rights
Human rights are universally recognized Morality, moral principles or Social norm, norms that establish standards of human behavior and are often protected by both Municipal law, national and international laws. These rights are considered ...
organization Amnesty International
Amnesty International (also referred to as Amnesty or AI) is an international non-governmental organization focused on human rights, with its headquarters in the United Kingdom. The organization says that it has more than ten million members a ...
and the American government, along with other surviving Tazmamart prisoners, including his brothers, on the condition that he leave for France never to return.
The French government had consistently cooperated with Morocco in denying his imprisonment, and Bourequat was scalding in his critique of Paris's collaboration with the Moroccan government. While writing about his experiences and about the close ties between the Moroccan government and the French government, Bourequat stated he was threatened and harassed by both Moroccan and French secret police. He fled to the United States, where he was in 1995 granted asylum as the only American refugee
A refugee, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), is a person "forced to flee their own country and seek safety in another country. They are unable to return to their own country because of feared persecution as ...
from France.
He presently lives in Hendersonville, North Carolina (USA) where he remains a vocal critic of the Moroccan regime.
See also
* Years of lead
* Malika Oufkir
Malika Oufkir () (born April 2, 1953) is a Moroccan Berber writer and former victim of enforced disappearance. She is the daughter of General Mohamed Oufkir and a cousin of fellow Moroccan writer and actress Leila Shenna.
Biography
Malika Ouf ...
* Tazmamart
References
Publications
* Ali Bourequat (1998), ''In the Moroccan King's Secret Gardens'', Maurice Publishers
External links
Bibliomonde
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bourequat, Ali
Amnesty International prisoners of conscience held by Morocco
French biographers
Human rights abuses in Morocco
Living people
Moroccan writers
Writers from Rabat
Year of birth missing (living people)
French people of Moroccan descent
French people of Turkish descent
Moroccan people of Turkish descent
Tunisian people of Turkish descent
Moroccan escapees
Moroccan businesspeople
Moroccan people of Tunisian descent
Moroccan prisoners and detainees
French male non-fiction writers