EL HOCEIMA: INAUGURATION OF A NEW CCDH OFFICE TO FACILITATE ACCESS TO SERVICES

President of the Advisory Council on Human Rights (CCDH), Mr. Ahmed Herzenni, inaugurated on 27 December 2010 CCDH regional administrative office in El Hoceima. This office will cover the regions of Taza, El Hoceima, Taounate, Tangier and Tetouan.

This office is the seventh CCDH regional administrative office. The other six are located in Laayoune, Ouajda, Agadir, Midelt, Ouarzazate and Beni Mellal. CCDH regional offices work to promote and protect human rights at the local level. They cooperate with all local stakeholders concerned by the protection of human rights, organize promotional activities, examine the situation of human rights at the local level, prepare periodic reports, examine and investigate individual and collective complaints relative to human rights, develop programs to promote economic, social and cultural rights that take into account the local characteristics of each region.

The newly inaugurated office is, thus, a new brick to strengthen the presence of the Advisory Council at the regional level and promote human rights at the national level.

During the inauguration ceremony, attended by Mr. Mohamed El Hafi, Wali of the region of Taza - El Hoceima - Taounate - Guercif and Governor of El Hoceima, Mr. Ahmed Herzenni indicated that the inauguration of this new office strengthens the proximity policy adopted by the Council to support regionalization and decentralization. The new office will help promote human rights culture and values and strengthen the work of the Council at the local level. It will facilitate access to CCDH services and communication and cooperation with local stakeholders.

The Council is currently shifting to a new phase that focuses on the promotion of economic, social, cultural and environmental rights, in addition to the civil and political rights, Mr. Herzenni said. He indicated that the work of the Council and the Equity and Reconciliation Commission has shown that this region needs a great effort to shed more light on its history in addition to its richness in terms of symbolic historical monuments which deserve to be classified as memory places.

Mr. Herzenni didn’t fail to shed light on the efforts of the Council regarding institutional reforms and, particularly, in the fields of justice rehabilitation and harmonization of the Penal Code and the Code of the Penal Procedure with the international human rights standards. The Council, he added, works also on social and institutional issues, such as the Community Reparation Program, concerned by memory and development issues.

For his part, Mr. El Hafi praised the initiative of opening a CCDH regional administrative office in the region. It is an important step to strengthen the work of the Council at the regional level, he said. It strengthens the proximity policy adopted by the Council to support regionalization and decentralization, in order to promote human rights culture and democracy, which links rights to duties.

During this ceremony, attended by several political, civil society and human rights stakeholders, elected officials and heads of exterior services, the Advisory Council on Human Rights appointed Ms Naima El Youssoufy and Abderrafie Errahmouni to be in charge of the newly inaugurated office.