Outrage Erupts Over Morocco’s Bid for Mandela Award: Human Rights Defenders Decry a Political Farce

✍️ BY: Dr. Hana Saada

Prominent Moroccan activists, journalists, and former detainees condemn Rabat’s candidacy for the 2025 Nelson Mandela Human Rights Prize as a “moral and political scandal,” accusing the regime of whitewashing decades of systematic repression and abuse.

Algiers, Algeria | May 12th, 2025 —  A wave of indignation has swept through Moroccan civil society following the controversial nomination of the Kingdom of Morocco for the United Nations Nelson Mandela Human Rights Prize for 2025. Human rights defenders, journalists, and former political prisoners have condemned the candidacy as a blatant attempt to launder the country’s repressive record, branding it an affront to the memory of Mandela and to the very essence of human dignity.

Moroccan human rights advocate and blogger, Mohamed Kandil, voiced sharp criticism in an article titled “When the Executioner Seeks the Victim’s Medal.” “This nomination is nothing short of a grotesque farce, yet another addition to the archive of the Makhzen regime’s institutionalized audacity,” Kandil wrote. “When Morocco nominates itself for the Mandela Prize, it’s as though it expects the world to believe that mass graves, secret prisons, and torture chambers are minor procedural glitches.”

At the center of the storm is Amina Bouayach, President of the Moroccan National Human Rights Council (CNDH), who has been put forward as the face of Morocco’s human rights credentials. But critics argue the council under her leadership has devolved into a propaganda arm for state repression. “Bouayach is not an independent activist but a loyal agent of the intelligence services, deployed to legitimize state violence and sanitize reports from international watchdogs,” Kandil stated, denouncing the council’s complicity in the crackdown on the Rif Hirak, journalists, and political dissidents.

Mockingly, Kandil questioned: “Which Mandela does Morocco aspire to imitate? The one who endured 27 years in prison for defending dignity and freedom? Or the Makhzen’s twisted version that throws activists in jail with 27 fabricated charges in a 27-minute show trial?”

He warned that awarding Morocco this prize would be “a political and ethical catastrophe—a state-sanctioned whitewashing of a bloodstained record, and a betrayal of every tortured dissident, every grieving mother, and every Moroccan silenced for daring to say ‘no’ to tyranny.”

Echoing these sentiments, Moroccan journalist and writer Ali Lahrouchi described the nomination as “an insult to the United Nations.” He asserted that the Mandela Prize symbolizes a legacy of sacrifice, moral leadership, and justice—all values trampled by the Moroccan regime. “Morocco still lives in the Middle Ages. What has changed to warrant this nomination?” Lahrouchi asked. “Criticism in Morocco is met with assassination, kidnapping, torture, arbitrary detention, and the full machinery of a state apparatus weaponized to crush dissent.”

He warned that if Morocco were to win the prize, “it would be the final nail in the coffin of the UN’s credibility. Institutions that reward the persecutors of freedom will lose all moral authority.”

Former political detainee and renowned rights activist Saida El Alami expressed disbelief over the candidacy. “What human rights is Morocco referring to, when Moroccan citizens are denied even the most basic civil, political, and economic rights?” she asked. Drawing attention to the regime’s systematic targeting of opponents, El Alami highlighted the intensifying human rights crisis marked by judicial manipulation, fabricated charges against rights defenders, and rampant abuse in police custody and prison cells.

“I fail to understand how such a nomination was even considered,” she concluded. “If Mandela were alive today, he would have withdrawn his name from the prize the moment those who trample on humanity claimed it.”

The mounting backlash underscores a growing sense of betrayal among Moroccan activists who fear that international institutions are becoming complicit in the normalization of authoritarianism. At stake, they warn, is not just a prize, but the global principles it is supposed to represent.

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