A/HRC/13/42* page 35 and others v. Sudan, a case before the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights, concerned, among others, the allegation that torture and ill-treatment were widespread in prisons and ghost houses in the Sudan.108 3. Secret detention in Northern Africa and the Middle East 75. In Algeria, in the context of internal strife during the 1990s, and in particular between 1993 and 1998, the security forces and State-armed militias arrested thousands of men on suspicion of involvement in terrorist activities, in circumstances leaving the relatives of those arrested men with no knowledge of their whereabouts.109 As a result, the relatives were often forced to request the issuance of a declaration of absence from judges and officials, who were in most cases denying or concealing the whereabouts of the arrested men.110 A number of the disappeared persons are reported to have been members or sympathizers of the Islamic Salvation Front.111 76. Patterns of enforced disappearances and secret detentions facilities were also identified in Morocco as of the early 1960s.112 In most cases, the victims were human rights activists, trade unionists or involved in activities of political opposition.113 Since Morocco took control of Western Sahara at the end of 1975, hundreds of Sahrawi men and women known or suspected of pro-independence activities had disappeared after having been arrested by Moroccan security forces. Many of the victims were reported to have been confined in secret detention centres, such as El Ayun, Qal’at M’gouna, Agdz, Derb Moulay Cherif in Casablanca, and Tazmamart. The Moroccan authorities had continuously denied any knowledge of such detention centres. For 108 Amnesty International, Comité Loosli Bachelard, Lawyers Committee for Human Rights, Association of Members of the Episcopal Conference of East Africa v. Sudan, Communications 48/1990, 50/1991, 52/1991 and 89/1993, 13th activity report (1999-2000), AHG/222 (XXXVI), annex V, para. 5. Reference taken from Nigel Rodley and Matt Pollard, The Treatment of Prisoners under International Law, Third ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009, p. 472. See also the report of the Special Rapporteur on torture (E/CN.4/1994/31), paras. 512-527. 109 See, inter alia, the report of the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, opinion No. 28/2001 (E/CN.4/2003/8/Add.1). 110 Human Rights Committee, Bouroual v. Algeria, Communication No. 992/2001, 24 April 2006, and Boucherf v. Algeria, Communication No. 1196/2003, 27 April 2006. 111 E/CN.4/1998/43, para. 81. 112 Subcommission on Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities (E/CN.4/Sub.2/1993/SR.17), para. 59. See also the report of the Working Group Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances (E/CN.4/1987/15), paras. 150-108; and the report of the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention (E/CN.4/1993/24), dec. No. 38/1992. 113 Tulio Scovazzi and Gabriella Citroni, The Struggle against Enforced Disappearance and the 2007 United Nations Convention, Leiden, Boston, Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 2007, p.70. See also Amnesty International report “The disappeared in Morocco”, MDE 29/01/93.