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New York, February 19, 2002—The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) deplores the suspended prison sentences and fines imposed last week on two journalists from the weekly Le Journal Hebdomadaire. On February 14, a Casablanca court of appeals convicted Abou Bakr Jamai, publications director of Le Journal Hebdomadaire, and Ali Ammar, the newspaper’s general director, of…
New York, May 8, 2002—The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) condemns the Monday, May 6, confiscation of the intellectual and political magazine Wijhat Nadhar. Wijhat Nadhar editor El-Mostafa Soulaih told CPJ that staff contacted him from Al-Najah al-Jadidah printing press in Casablanca and told him that agents from the secret service, the Direction de la…
New York, July 13, 2001 — CPJ is disturbed by the recent Moroccan government harassment of Alain Chabod, deputy chief editor of France 3 Public Television, and Ali Lmrabet, director of the Moroccan weekly Demain Magazine, as well as by the temporary freeze on the printing of Demain. Moroccan secret service (DST) agents began following…
PREFACE by Peter Arnett INTRODUCTION by Ann Cooper REGIONAL ANALYSES: Africa | Americas | Asia | Europe and Central Asia | Middle East and North Africa AFRICA country summaries Angola | Benin | Burkina Faso | Burundi | Cameroon | Chad | Democratic Republic of Congo | Eritrea | Ethiopia | Gambia | Ghana |…
ALTHOUGH RIGHTS TO FREE EXPRESSION AND PRESS FREEDOM are enshrined in national constitutions from Algeria to Yemen, governments found many practical ways to restrict these freedoms. State ownership of the media, censorship, legal harassment, intimidation, and imprisonment of journalists were again among the favored tools of repression and control. In Iraq, Libya, Saudi Arabia, Syria,…
LATE IN THE YEAR, A SURGE OF POLITICAL VIOLENCE FURTHER DIMMED the prospects of President Abdel Aziz Bouteflika’s plan for national reconciliation and an end to Algeria’s nine years of civil strife. Particularly in Algiers and other cities, however, the country was far more peaceful than in previous years, and the intense government censorship and…
Your Majesty: The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is deeply alarmed by the prison sentences and harsh financial penalties handed down on March 1 against two journalists at the weekly Le Journal Hebdomadaire. Abou Bakr Jamai, publications director of Le Journal Hebdomadaire and Ali Ammar, the newspaper’s general director, were convicted of defaming Foreign Minister Muhammed Ben Aissa and sentenced to jail terms of three and two months, respectively. Both men were also ordered to pay fines and damages totaling 2,020,000 Dirhams (about US$200,000). The charges stemmed from articles published last year in Le Journal Hebdomadaire’s now-defunct weekly predecessor, Le Journal. These had alleged that Ben Aissa profited from the purchase of an official residence during his tenure as Morocco’s ambassador to the United States in the late 1990s.
Your Majesty: The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is writing to protest the Moroccan government’s decision to ban the weekly newspapers Demain, Le Journal, and Al-Sahiffa. On December 2, the government released a statement saying the three newspapers were banned because they had attacked “the most sacred institutional bases of our country” and threatened “the stability of the state.” The statement added: “In insulting reality … and fabricating history, these papers have created doubt and sowed confusion in the spirit of Moroccans.”
Click here to read more about press freedom conditions in MOROCCO New York, June 2, 2000 — Morocco’s King Muhammad VI issued a royal pardon last Sunday annulling the prison sentences and other penalties recently imposed on two journalists for allegedly libeling Foreign Minister Muhammad Benaissa, the Committee to Protect Journalists has learned.