A major Clinton Foundation donor regularly arrests dissidents and brutally tortures them to extract confessions, according to a new report from Amnesty International. The New York Times reports that despite promises of reform, the Moroccan government continues to use "violent interrogation tactics" to "crush dissent."
Moroccan King Mohammed VI recently hosted Bill and Chelsea Clinton at a Clinton Global Initiative conference in Marrakech, where guests were "chauffeured across the city to an opulent 56-room palace that boasts a private collection of Arabian horses, overlooks the snow-capped Atlas Mountains and serves a fine-dining menu of ‘biolight’ cuisine," according to the Washington Post.
During the conference Bill cited "Morocco’s longstanding friendship to my family," and thanked the king, who pledged as much as $500,000 toward the construction of the Clinton Library, as well as the OCP Corporation, a government-owned phosphate mining company that has donated at least $1 million to the Clinton Foundation. In interviews with POLITICO, former OCP miners described witnessing verbal and physical abuse doled out by the government against member of a minority advocating for independence in Western Sahara.
Amnesty International secretary general Salil Shetty blasted the Moroccan government in a statement, saying: "Morocco’s leaders portray the image of a liberal, human-rights-friendly country. But as long as the threat of torture hangs over detention and dissent that image will just be a mirage."
According to the report, Moroccan dissidents are repeatedly subjected to "beatings, stress positions, asphyxiation, simulated drowning, psychological and sexual violence," as a means of securing confessions for alleged crimes against the state. One tactic, known as the "roast chicken," involves "suspending detainees from an iron bar by their wrists and knees."
It is not known whether Bill Clinton met with any Moroccan detainees while hobnobbing at the Clinton Foundation event, which featured a "lavish palm-tree-lined golf resort with a cocktail reception featuring Moroccan hors d’oeuvres and a saxophonist serenading about 50 donors."