Morocco

New York, September 26, 2010--On the eve of a high-profile conference on press freedom in Rabat, the Committee to Protect Journalists reiterates its call to King Mohammed VI to use his constitutional prerogatives to bring Moroccan legislation in line with international standards for freedom of expression. CPJ also urged the monarch to end the use of the judiciary and other government agencies to harass critical journalists. 

While high-ranking Arab officials are not held accountable for misinforming or misleading the public, critical journalists in their respective countries are increasingly dragged into courts and handed harsh jail sentences following unfair trials for “spreading false news.”

On Friday evening, after receiving an unexpected royal pardon, Driss Chahtan, the editor of the independent weekly Al-Michaal, was released from Oukacha Prison in Casablanca. However, his release is one of the few positive developments amid many alarming cases of worsening press conditions in Morocco.

New York, June 15, 2010—The Committee to Protect Journalists called on the Moroccan judiciary today to overturn a prison sentence given Friday to Taoufik Bouachrine, editor of the independent daily Akhbar al-Youm, on politicized criminal charges.

The European Court of Human Rights issued a historic sentence on June 1, when it ruled that Spain’s sentencing in a case between the now-deceased Moroccan king Hassan II and me, formerly the editor of the Madrid-based newspaper Diario 16, violated the rights of freedom of expression and of the press.

Two weeks ago, Mohamed Abdel Dayem, CPJ’s Middle East and North Africa Program Coordinator, and I were in Morocco to hold meetings with government officials as well as journalists. In some ways the trip was a success, but in other ways it left much to be desired from a country that claims to be “at the forefront of liberalization in the region,” to borrow language used by Morocco’s Communication Minister Khalid Naciri in his meeting with CPJ on February 19.

By Mohamed Abdel Dayem and Robert Mahoney

The media in the Middle East loved the Intifada. Every detail of Israel’s violations of human rights in the late 1980s in the West Bank and Gaza appeared in the Arabic and Farsi press. The governments that owned or controlled these media outlets loved it, too. When pan-Arab satellite television stations emerged in the 1990s, they looped hours of footage of Israeli soldiers and Jewish settlers repressing Palestinians.

Top Developments
• Authorities censor, jail journalists to silence coverage of the royal family.
• Politicized courts issue heavy defamation awards.

New York, January 29, 2010—The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns the latest development in Moroccan authorities’ efforts to silence the independent newsmagazine Le Journal Hebdomadaire. Liquidators took control of the country’s most critical publication this week after a Casablanca commercial appeals court declared on Monday that Le Journal Hebdomadaire’s former publishing group, Media Trust, and its current one, Trimedia, were bankrupt, lawyers told CPJ.