Letter from Morocco

On 30 September 1999, two months after his accession to the throne, the new Moroccan king, Mohammed VI, announced his decision to permit political dissident Abraham Serfaty’s return to the country. After seventeen years of imprisonment, torture, and isolation in a Moroccan prison and eight years’ exile in France, the most celebrated political opponent of the recently deceased king, Hassan II (1961- 99), became a free citizen. King Mohammed VI allowed Serfaty to return from exile, a gesture ...