In a response to a press release issued by the AMDH central office in which this association claims that “the DIDH has concealed cases of sexual harassment of which the Delegation’s employees have been victims while exercising reprisals against others who initiated this affair”, the DIDH notes that the remarks contained in the association’s press release are defamatory in that they undermine the dignity of women civil servants and also the image of a public service, especially since they are not based on any evidence and consequently, the DIDH reserves the right to resort to justice.
In its statement entitled “No to subversion and concealment in the name of human rights”, the DIDH specifies that it “took the initiative and without any hesitation, a first in the annals of human rights at the institutional and associative levels, to reveal the cases of four women civil servants who declared themselves victims of sexual harassment.
In receiving them, the Interministerial Delegate for Human Rights expressed his strong indignation while apologizing to them before informing them of his decision to refer the case to the Public Prosecutor’s Office.”
While recalling that it had issued a communiqué on the subject on February 8, 2022, the DIDH questions the existence of an intention to cover up as was mentioned in the press release of the AMDH central office.
In its statement, the DIDH says that “it has ensured a direct monitoring of the case, by presenting it a second time in the form of a complaint filed with the prosecutor’s office at the court of first instance in Rabat”, announcing that “it is part of the public opinion that follows this case and this, given the importance of the evidence that would lead to the outcome of the investigation on prosecution.”
Justice is the only one entitled to decide in this case and to disentangle the true from the false, before questioning again the existence of any intention of dissimulation as it was evoked in the association’s press release.
The DIDH also informed that “it has entrusted the case to the Public Prosecutor’s Office and has not hesitated to qualify the act perpetrated by the respondent as an aggression, which has been reinstated, after being discharged from his duties at his request, his original administration. Consequently, the DIDH has no role in his promotion or his assignment to another administration.”
This, according to the same source, shows once again the bad faith that taints the press release of the central office in its distortion of the facts and the link that it evokes between the individual accused of sexual harassment and the Inter-ministerial Delegation for Human Rights.
The DIDH also indicates that “the hearing for the presentation of apologies to the complainants took place in the presence of the head of the trade union office in his capacity as the first person to sound the alarm on the commission of acts of harassment”, emphasizing that the Interministerial Delegate welcomed his initiative, as was noted for information when the matter was referred to the Public Prosecutor’s Office and then when the complaint was lodged, whereas the press release from the central office of the aforementioned association, in distorting the truth, evokes reprisals against trade unionists”.
