Q&A: Moroccan press freedom advocate and NSO Group spyware target Maati Monjib
Pegasus, the cellphone spyware tool sold by the Israeli firm NSO Group, is one of the most powerful surveillance systems governments can buy, experts say. Researchers who study it have detected “45 countries where Pegasus operators may be conducting surveillance operations,” and detailed its capabilities: whoever tricks the target into clicking on a link that…
Moroccan authorities arrest journalist Hajar Raissouni
Moroccan security forces arrested Hajar Raissouni, a reporter for independent news website Akhbar al-Youm, on August 31, 2019, as she was leaving her doctor’s office with her fiancé in Rabat, according to her employer and Huffington Post Maghreb. Akhbar al-Youm reported that plainclothes agents also arrested her fiancé, the doctor, and two medical staff from…
Moroccan independent journalists describe climate of pervasive surveillance, harassment
In March 2015, Hicham Mansouri emailed an anti-malware company, suspicious of possible signs that someone was able to access his device remotely, without permission. He remembers exchanging a few messages with the software company, but the correspondence was interrupted after a few days, when around 10 police officers in civilian clothes arrived at his home…
Moroccan press freedom conference in Paris shut down after disruptions, power cut
A conference on press freedom in Morocco held in Paris, France, was shut down on February 15, 2019, when the power was cut to the event after hecklers yelled at speakers and threw stink bombs, according to news reports, videos posted to social media, and witnesses who spoke with CPJ.
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…
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…
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…
Morocco jails press freedom advocate Hicham Mansouri
New York, April 7, 2015–The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns the sentencing of Moroccan press freedom advocate Hicham Mansouri, who was handed a 10-month prison term and $4,057 fine over adultery charges by Rabat’s Court of First Instance on March 30, according to local and international news reports.