Abraham Serfaty

Abraham Serfaty (Arabic: أبراهام سرفاتي‎‎‎; 1926 – 18 November 2010) was an internationally prominent Moroccan dissident, militant, and political activist, who was imprisoned for years by King Hassan II of Morocco, for his political actions in favor of democracy and developments regime, during the Years of Lead. He paid a high price for such actions: fifteen months living underground, seventeen years of imprisonment and eight years of exile. Upon his return to Morocco in September 1999, he was given the position of Advisor to king Mohammed VI

Abraham Serfaty was born in Casablanca, in 1926, of a middle-class Jewish family originally from Tangier. He graduated in 1949 of École des Mines de Paris one of the most prominent French engineering Grandes écoles. His path as a political activist started very early: in February 1944, he joined the Moroccan Youth Communists, and, upon his arrival in France in 1945, the French Communist Party. When he returned to Morocco in 1949, he joined the Moroccan Communist Party. His anti-colonialist fight had him arrested and jailed by the French authorities, and in 1950 he was assigned a forced residence in France for six years.

On the morrow of Morocco’s independence, he encumbered several, more technical than political, posts and was part of the Ministry of Economy from 1957 to 1960. During that time, he has been one of the many promoters of the new mining policy of the newly independent Morocco. From 1960 to 1968, he was the director of the Research-Development of the Cherifian Office of Phosphates, but revoked of his duties because of his solidarity with miners at one strike. From 1968 to 1972, he taught at the Engineers School of Mohammedia, and at the same time, collaborated at the "Souffles/Anfas" artistic journal, headed by Abdellatif Laabi.

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