Ahmed Marzouki

Born in 1947 in Bouâjoul, Ahmed Marzouki is a writer, Moroccan ex-military and a past political prisoner.

After graduating in the Académie royale militaire in Meknes, he is designated Second-Lieutenant in 1969. In 1970, he joins the infantry regiment in the royal military school of Ahermoumou, near Fes where he becomes a military instructor. 

Ahmed Marzouki was a non-commissioned officer cadet in the Ahermoumou school when with 1400 of his comrades, thinking they were going to Benslimane for training, they were directed to Skhirat to attempt a coup d’état against the regime of Hassan II. 

After this failed attempt, he was sentenced in 1972 to five years in prison. Rather, he gets imprisoned for 20 years: in the prison of Kenitra and then in the secret prison of Tazmamart where he spends 18 years.

Ahmed Marzouki is one of the 28 survivors of the Tazmamart. In his book, Tazmamart cellule 10, published in 2001, he narrates in a precise and shocking way his 6550 nights, spent in a windowless cell of 3 meters by 2,5 meters. With only 17 small air holes leading to a dark corridor, no furniture, no utensils; he was barely fed, Turkish toilet constantly clogged, Never going out, without being able to shave, cut his hair or nails nor wash. He was eaten by lice, bedbugs, cockroaches, scorpions for eighteen years.

“The sufferings endured by Marzouki and his friends, writes Ignace Dalle in his preface, highlight the excesses of a system of power that we would like to be sure has disappeared.”

After the liberation of the Tazmamart prisoners in 1991, under pressure from NGOs, Ahmed Marzouki resumed his studies and obtained his bachelor’s degree in 1993, followed by a degree in private law in 1998.