Amnesty urges release of Moroccan activists

RABAT, July 17 (Reuters) Morocco's government should free eight activists jailed for criticising the country's monarchy and investigate reports that security forces violently broke up a peaceful protest, Amnesty International said today.

Five rights campaigners were jailed for 1-3 years and fined for slogans they shouted at a May 1 demonstration in the town of Ksar el Kbir in northern Morocco. Three others are in prison after being rounded up after similar protests elsewhere.

''Amnesty International considers these eight imprisoned people as prisoners of conscience, held merely for taking part in peaceful demonstrations during which they peacefully expressed their opinion,'' Amnesty said in a statement.

At a protest held in their support near the parliament in Rabat in June, members of the security forces surrounded demonstrators and began beating them with truncheons without any prior warning, Amnesty said.

Thirty people were hurt, one suffering a broken wrist and another a burst ear drum, it said. Further protests were blocked by the authorities.

Amnesty called on the government to hold an independent inquiry into the violence and for action to be taken against the people who injured the protesters.

''Reparations must also be handed out to the injured and measures taken to stop the auxiliary forces using excessive force,'' Amnesty said.

Morocco is a freer society than during the so-called ''Years of Lead'' under King Hassan, when hundreds of government critics disappeared and thousands were imprisoned after unfair trials.

But Moroccans still risk prison if they criticise the monarchy or question the king's role as guardian of Islam or Morocco's claim over the territory of Western Sahara.

Rights groups say hundreds of people have been arrested under sweeping anti-terrorism laws and subjected to ill-treatment or unfair trials since 2003 when suicide bombings killed 45 in the economic capital Casablanca.

The Moroccan government says the security forces are duty bound to respect human rights and there has been a clear improvement in the country's judicial system in recent years.

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