Yasmin El-Rifae/Middle East and North Africa Research Associate

Yasmin el-Rifae is CPJ's Middle East and North Africa research associate. Previously, she worked in journalism and human rights in Egypt, focusing on the struggle against sexual harassment. El-Rifae also helps run the Palestine Festival of Literature (PalFest), which takes place annually in the West Bank and Gaza.

Features & Analysis
King Mohammed VI waves a Moroccan flag as he inaugurates a solar plant in Ouarzazate, central Morocco, on February 4, 2016. The king and national symbols like the flag are sensitive subjects for the media. (AP/Abdeljalil Bounhar)

Mission Journal: Morocco’s new press law undermined by draft penal code

In the small, polished Moroccan capital of Rabat, pictures of King Mohamed VI, who took the throne in 1999, hang in many shops, offices, and hotels. In most of these, he is clean-shaven, smiling, and wearing a suit: a modern monarch. His image is part of the official narrative of the country as a place…

Read More ›

Features & Analysis
Taoufik Bouachrine in 2009 (AFP)

Amid wave of defamation cases, CPJ joins call for Morocco to drop charges against press

New York, November 13, 2015–CPJ has joined Free Press Unlimited and seven other organizations in a statement of support for seven Moroccan journalists and human rights defenders who will face trial on November 19, on charges ranging from defamation to harming national security. One of the journalists, Hicham Mansouri, is already behind bars on an…

Read More ›

Features & Analysis

CPJ joins call for Morocco to end harassment of journalists

The Committee to Protect Journalists has joined the Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies and three other human rights groups, in calling on the government of Morocco to stop its harassment of journalists and human rights defenders. The statement was delivered during the general debate at the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva on…

Read More ›