In Algeria and Tunisia, rapists are evading punishment by marrying their teenage victims. In Morocco and Western Sahara, this is thankfully no longer the case. However, the law still fails to adequately protect survivors of sexual violence.

Marines broke into Claudia Medina’s home in Veracruz on 7 August 2012 at around 3am. They took her to the local navy base where she was given electric shocks, forced to inhale a very spicy sauce, beaten up and kicked while she was wrapped up in plastic in order to disguise the subsequent marks. The marines accused her of being a member of a powerful and violent criminal gang. Claudia said she did not know anything about them. She was pressured into signing a false testimony without reading it. Later she told Amnesty "If they had not tortured me, I would not have signed the statement.” Despite most of the charges being dropped, one serious charge still stands against Claudia and no investigation into her allegations of torture by government forces has taken place. The first step in these investigations has not taken place. An effective medical examination must be carried out as part of a swift, full and impartial investigation, as established in the internationally recognised Istanbul Protocol.

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Dilorom Abdukadirova peacefully attended a protest to voice her concerns about the economy in Uzbekistan. When the police opened fire on the protests she ran for safety to the border where she received a refugee visa for Australia. Almost 4 years later she returned to her family but on arrival she was detained and charged with attempting to overthrow the constitutional order and illegally exiting Uzbekistan. At the trial her family members said she looked unusually thin, had bruises on her face and was without her head scarf. The family doesn’t believe she would have removed her head scarf by choice. In 2012, Dilorom’s sentence was extended by eight years after she had been accused of allegedly breaking prison rules with “bad behaviour”; no explanation of what this constituted was given. Dilorom remains in prison, where her family fears she is again being ill-treated. Dilorom Abdukadirova is a prisoner of conscience, convicted for exercising her right to freedom of expression and peacefully attending a protest.

Ali Aarrass was tortured for 12 days by officials of the Government, from the General Directorate for the Surveillance of the Territory (DST). He was held incommunicado in a secret detention centre in Témara, Morocco where he describes he was beaten on the soles of his feet, experienced electric shocks to his testicles and was suspended for long periods from the wrists. The United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention (WGAD) said that he was convicted on the sole basis of a confession extracted under torture. Call for justice for Ali Aarrass and survivors of torture; call on the Minister of Justice to open an investigation into the torture and implement the decision of the WGAD calling for his immediate release.

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