September 2nd, 2009 by Daniel

Western Sahara activist Naâma Asfari was sentenced to jail by a Moroccan court last week on charges “showing contempt toward a public agent,” in what Human Rights Watch calls another sign that the regime “continues to punish peaceful activists who show their support for independence for that region.” Asfari was sentenced to four months in jail, which makes this his third conviction in three years. The official Moroccan press agency claimed that Asfari and his cousin, who was also convicted, refused to show their identity cards to a police officer during a routine stop. Last week Moroccan Interior Minister Chakib Benmoussa accused Western Sahara activists of politicizing common law to draw sympathy to their cause. Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East and North Africa director at Human Rights Watch, counters that “Moroccan authorities keep finding new excuses to lock Asfari up, but it seems that what lies behind it all is his peaceful activism on the Western Sahara.”

 The Moroccan state press agency also announced today that a Rabat attorney general will be investigating an Arabic-language newspaper that recently published a story challenging official press releases on the health of King Muhammed VI. The paper, Al Jarida Al Oula, printed a story on August 27 claiming the King’s illness would disrupt his public schedule more than official releases had claimed. The French television channel LCI notes that this intervention in the media comes on the heels of a controversial decision to ban editions of two weeklies, TelQuel and Nichane, which contained a public opinion poll about the King. That controversy sparked an online movement called the “9 Percent Movement” after the 9 percent of survey respondents who said they did not think the King has performed well in his first 10 years of rule.

Posted in Freedom, Human Rights, Journalism, Morocco |