First: Introduction
Many Moroccan cities have witnessed noticeable waves of street mobilization and mass demonstrations because of the economic hardships faced by the majority of the population. Journalists, human rights defenders, and social media activists tried to protest these difficulties, but they were met with suppression from an administrative apparatus that is marred by manifold forms of extravagance and corruption. This apparatus always rejects calls for reform and blames citizens and their social mobility accusing them of “serving a separatist agenda and conspiring to harm the country’s national security”.
The Moroccan authorities have attempted to suppress protesters using violence and physical assaults. They also attempted to silence those who voiced opposition in several ways including; restricting the press, blocking unlicensed websites, and holding unfair trials against many journalists, human rights defenders and social media activists.
The repercussions of the Hirak Rif popular movement, which erupted in Morocco’s northern Rif region throughout 2017, still affect the state of freedom of opinion and expression in the country, after upholding the court’s baseless rulings against protesters and activists. Also, the case of “contractual teachers” is still underway in courts without reaching any strategic solution that satisfies their minimum ambition.
Second: Legislative and legal developments
In an attempt to impose a de facto situation on workers and trade union organizations in Morocco, the government has introduced to the Parliament a new draft law restricting the right to strike. The law, which is dubbed “Law 15-97 on the right to strike”, considers workers participating in a strike temporarily suspended from work during that period and deprives them of getting paid for the duration of the strike. It also prohibits workers from holding strikes in the workplace, their entrances or the access roads. Furthermore, after the termination or the cancellation of a strike, workers are prohibited upon this law to stage a new strike with the same demands except after at least one year, and if these provisions are violated, the employer can claim compensation for losses and damages incurred to the institution.
The bill ignited massive outrage among Moroccan work unions, as the World Federation of Trade Unions (FSM) called on Prime Minister Saad al-Din al-Othmani to withdraw the bill from the parliament and respect international law.
As a result of local and international pressure, the government eventually backed down and requested the parliament’s competent committee to postpone the discussion over the draft law until reaching a consensus between the unions and the government.
On the other hand, the Moroccan Ministry of Culture and Communication adopted during 2019 the Press and Publication Law No. 13.88, which imposes severe restrictions on both print and online journalism, at the time the authorities opened the headquarters of the National Press Council on 25 July.
Third: Cases with the most impact on freedom of expression
The Arabic Network for Human Rights Information (ANHRI) monitored a number of cases related to freedom of opinion and expression that aroused much public attention in Morocco. Among these cases is the trial of “Hirak” activists before the Court of Appeal, in which the Presiding Judge was accused of breaking his impartiality and being “biased” on the 7th of January hearing, when he prevented the defense lawyer from presenting his pleadings legal justification and without deliberating the decision with the rest of the jury, in addition to his repeated interruption of lawyers while they were pleading the case as he prevented them from providing what they deem appropriate to serve the case.
As a result, the trial was boycotted by 38 of the Hirak Rif movement’s leaders including Nasser Al-Zafzafi in protest against the lack of fair trial guarantees, as the trial sessions were attended by only four defendants along with journalist Hamid Al-Mahdawi. (1)
In the evening of April 5, the court of appeals upheld the decision to imprison Nasser al-Zafzafi , the leader of Rif Protests, and his co-defendants for periods ranging from 20 years to one year in prison. The case had witnessed a serious development when Ahmed Zafzafi, the father of Nasser Zafzafi, read on the evening of August 23 a statement in which his son, along with 5 others from the Hirak case detainees, announced their intention to renounce their Moroccan citizenship.
Another important case that was considered during 2019 is the case of Contractual Teachers’ sit-in dispersal, which continued to be deliberated in courts for about two months. More than 1,300 contractual teachers protested in front of the headquarters of the Directorate of National Education and Vocational Training (NDI) in Marrakech demanding to be integrated as public sector employees in the education sector on permanent contracts, which would allow them more job stability. In response, the security forces interfered on the 6th of March to forcibly break up the protest sit-in resulting in severe injuries among protesters. However, the evening of April 24, the teachers repeated the sit-in once again in front of the parliament headquarters at Mohamed V Street in the capital city. The sit-in was also broken by force resulting in the injury of about 59 people.
The third prominent case convened in 2019 which had been the most influential throughout the year is the case of journalist Hajar Raissouni, whose arrest on charges of having an illegal abortion and premarital sex, after visiting a gynecologist’s clinic in the capital Rabat to seek treatment for internal bleeding, has provoked several questions about the right to personal inviolability and the right to protect private life as well as the issue of fabricating cases against journalists. The case of Al-Resouni was met with huge support from opinion leaders inside and outside Morocco.
Fourth: Violations against freedom of expression
Prevention from work/Ban
Not only did Moroccan authorities prevent journalists and opinion leaders from expressing their views, but the matter went beyond to reach individuals who are not members of the government. For instance, on March 15, a number of private security guards prevented a group of journalists and photographers from covering the 12th National Congress of the Moroccan Labor Union. The ban was also confined to journalists but it had extended to reach members of opposition movements.
Also, on 12 April, authorities at Al-Aroui airport Nador (a rural province in northern Morocco) prevented Nawal Benaissa from traveling to the Netherlands to take part in an international symposium on peace and protest movements in response to an invitation from the Dutch Socialist Party (PS).
Furthermore, the Moroccan authorities at Rabat city barred, on May 3, the Unified Socialist Party from holding the opening session of Rabat Salé Kenitra Conference in the Chamber of Industry, Trade and Services, despite taking all the legal procedures.
On the other hand, historian and university professor Al-Moati Monjib announced, on April 22, that he had entered into a partial hunger strike to protest against the pressure exerted on him by the Ministry of Education in an attempt to fire him from the public office because of his human rights activism.
Assaults
The Moroccan authorities used violence and physical assaults to break up peaceful demonstrations and gatherings. For example, on March 6, different configurations of security forces intervened to disperse the sit-in organized by the contractual teachers in front of education directorates and academies in a number of cities in Morocco resulting in the injury of many protesters and the arrest of a number of them. On 24 April, Rapid intervention forces used water cannons and sticks to disperse the sit-in organized by thousands of teachers at Mohamed V Street in front of the parliament headquarters to demand their integration into public service. The dispersal operation resulted in the death of Abdellah Hajili, the father of a contractual teacher, on the 27th of May, after he suffered chest and shoulder fractures, in addition to the injury of 59 people.
On March 14, security forces violently dispersed a sit-in organized by a number of unemployed blind people from certificate holders in front of the annex building of the Ministry of Family, Solidarity, Equality and Social Development in Rabat.
Moreover, the Royal Gendarmerie and the Auxiliary Forces at Dar al Bayda forcibly dispersed, on 3 September, a sit-in organized by a group of sanitation workers at Mohammed V Airport in protest against their “arbitrary expulsion/dismissal”.
Trials
The Moroccan authorities used unfair trials and the fabrication of criminal and ethical cases as a sword of Damocles hanging over the heads of journalists, political opponents and human rights defenders. The United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention issued, on 29 January, a report documenting the case of Tawfiq Bouachrine, editor of Moroccan newspaper “Akhbar Al Youm”, confirming that the accusations against him were unfounded and that it had been ordered in retaliation for his journalistic work and his criticism of the Moroccan government. Bouachrine was arrested on 23 February 2018 and sentenced on 9 November 2018 to 12 years in prison on charges of “trafficking in human beings and sexual harassment.”
There are many other cases other than Bouachrine’s case, including the prosecution of journalist Hajar Raissouni over “illegal abortion and extramarital sex” charges. In the evening of Monday, 30 September 2019, the first instance court in Rabat sentenced Raissouni to one year in jail a fine of 500 dirhams (approximately $ 51), for an “illegal abortion” and sexual relations outside marriage. Raissouni’s fiancé (Refaat El Amin), a university professor and a Sudanese origin human rights activist, was also sentenced to a year in prison over the same charges. The couple were arrested after visiting a gynecological clinic in Rabat on the 31st of August 2018 to seek treatment for Hajar as she was suffering internal bleeding.
Thereafter, King Mohammed VI issued on 15 October 2019 a royal pardon for the female journalist, her fiancé and co-defendants in the case.
In another case, a Moroccan court fined, on 8 July 2019, journalist and human rights activist Nouzha al-Khalidi, who is affiliated with the activists group “Equipe Media” (a group of media workers concerned with documenting human rights violations), in El-Ayoun, Western Sahara. Al-Khalidi was fined a sum of 400 euros on a charge of “impersonating a journalist” on the grounds that she did not have press accreditation to work as a journalist, after she documented a demonstration in the city of El-Ayoun, on 4 December 2018, calling for the independence of Western Sahara.
On September 24, blogger Adnan Ahmadoun appeared before the Public Prosecution of the Court of First Instance in Tetouan, on a charge of “inciting to protest” after he shared a post encouraging people to participate in “Jerda” movement protests. Ahmadoun was ordered to be released on bail of 2000 dirhams and his first trial hearing was set on 8 October 2019.
The year of 2019 also witnessed the case of activist and blogger Sufian Al-Nakad whose first trial hearing was set on 21 January before the Court of Appeal in Tetouan. Al-Nakad is charged with “disobedience, incitement to disobedience and insulting the Kingdom and its symbols using the various means of audiovisual or electronic means of information “. Al-Nakad was prosecuted after he posted some comments on his “Facebook” account calling for organizing a protest to denounce the death of student Hayat Belkacem by the Moroccan Navy, as she tried to migrate on September 25, 2018.
Intimidation
The Moroccan authorities used to intimidate opinion holders through security threats besides leveling fabricated charges over ethical and criminal cases. For example, in late hours of Thursday, May 2, the Moroccan authorities used security threats to disperse a sit-in organized by the Faculty of Medicine and Pharmacy of Agadir (FMPA) demanding to provide the appropriate conditions for educational attainment. The students then received security threats to be arrested if they continue their sit-in on campus.
The authorities also filed a series of complaints and subpoenas to intimidate civil society activists after the protest they organized to denounce the court upholding the prison sentences against Hirak Rif detainees. On May 8, judicial police in the city of Berkane (northern Morocco), investigated Moustafa Laqah, the Secretary of the sub-Democratic Confederation of Labour (CDT) syndicate, known as “Kadash”, following a complaint submitted in 2017 by the mayor of the city for allegedly “insulting an employee while carrying out his work, unauthorized gathering, and incitement to protest.”
Blocking websites/ services
After the end of the grace period given by the government to electronic sites to legalize their status in accordance with Law 88.13 of the Press and Publications Code in August 2018, the Moroccan government has launched, since early 2019, a massive campaign to intimidate those in charge of electronic media to reconcile their conditions according to the law or else they would voluntarily close their websites.
On March 15, the Ministry of Culture and Communication announced that the Minister, the Chief Public Prosecutor, and the President of the National Press Council, agreed to continue coordination on various issues pertaining to the implementation of law regarding print and electronic media. Accordingly, the Minister of Culture and Communication, Muhammad al-Aaraj said on July 3 that at least 1,000 websites had voluntarily been blocked by their owners. He added that the relevant authorities would resort to taking urgent legal action against the websites that do not respect the Press and Publication Law, recalling that a fine of 20,000 dirhams will be imposed for each day of delay.
Fifth: Most common accusations against freedom of expression
The following are the most common charges used by the Moroccan authorities to suppress freedom of expression: “Impersonating journalists”, “inciting to protest”, “disobedience, incitement to disobedience and insulting the Kingdom’s flag and its symbols using the various means of audiovisual or electronic means of information”‘; in addition to the ethical accusations that aimed at discrediting journalists and human rights defenders such as: “rape, human trafficking, sexual harassment, illegal abortion and participation in illegal abortion”.
Sixth: Victims
Following is the list of victims of violations of freedom of opinion and expression in Morocco, which include both individuals and institutions participating in various in peaceful protest activities in the country:
Abdellah Hajili, the father of a contractual teacher, who died in the aftermath of the Contractual Teachers’ sit-in dispersal in front of the parliament, journalist Hamid Al-Mahdawi, journalist and human rights activist Nouzha al-Khalidi, Hirak Rif movement activist Nawal Benaissa, journalist Hajar Raissouni, journalist Tawfiq Bouachrine, Adnan Ahmadoun, blogger Sufian Al-Nakad, Moustafa Laqah- the Secretary of the sub-Democratic Confederation of Labour (CDT) syndicate, known as “Kadash- historian and university professor Al-Moati Monjib. This is in addition to a number of institutions and protest events, such as: the Unified Socialist Party in Rabat city, the sit-in organized by the contractual teachers in front of education directorates and academies in a number of cities in Morocco, the sit-in by a number of unemployed blind people from certificate holders in front of the annex building of the Ministry of Family, Solidarity, Equality and Social Development in Rabat, the sit-in by a group of sanitation workers at Mohammed V Airport and lastly the sit-in by the Faculty of Medicine and Pharmacy of Agadir (FMPA).
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Footnotes
- A news report on “Raseef 22” website, entitled “A total of three centuries … Prison sentences upheld against Hirak Rif movements leaders in Morocco”- Published on: 6 April 2019- Last accessed date: 7 October 2019-
