The national police force in Morocco is comprised of four sections; the Urban Corps, the Judiciary Police, the Mobile Intervention Companies, and the Internal Security Service. [George Thomas Kurian, ed., Encyclopedia of the Third World, vol. 2 ( New York: Facts on file, Inc., 1987), p. 1387. ]
Although the Judiciary Police(la police judiciaire) is the only division of the police force empowered to make arrests, there are persistent allegations that many arrests of political dissidents are made by unidentified persons in civilian dress. [Amnesty International, Report of an Amnesty International Mission to the Kingdom of Morocco; 10-13 February 1981, (London: 1981), p. 15.] It is assumed that these arrests are made by members of the Internal Security Service. Members of the ISS operating in this manner could possibly constitute an informal organization that is independent from the Judiciary Police. The Moroccan government, however, does not release information about the operation of the ISS and, therefore, it is impossible to determine whether a force known as the police civile is a division within the ISS. [Kurian, p. 1387.]
There are no special provisions for political offenses in Moroccan law and political detainees are held in ordinary prisons during their pre-trial period. [ Amnesty, Amnesty International Briefing: Morocco, (London: October 1977), p. 10 ] One of the main prisons in Casablanca is called the Prison Civile. [ Ibid.] There could possibly be some confusion over the jurisdiction of the Judiciary Police and the authorities of the Prison Civile, hence the emergence of the term Police Civile.
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