Posts Tagged ‘Morocco’
May 7th, 2013
Moroccan atheist Imad Eddin Habib is now on the run, after police began searching for him last week. Habib told Irshad Manji‘s Moral Courage TV that officers confronted his father, asking him to bring an end to his son’s activism. Habib is the founder of the Council of Ex-Muslims in Morocco, which aims for the “application of a secular constitution.”
The 22-year-old student has gained a reputation for his activism and controversial posts online, including a photograph of himself eating ice cream during the Islamic fasting month of Ramadan. Shortly before he went into hiding, Habib was featured in an article on a high profile Moroccan news site, and police were searching for him hours after it was published.
Atheism is not criminalised in Morocco, but Article 220 of the country’s Penal Code forbids “shaking a Muslim’s faith”. The article’s vague wording can be used to punish anyone who criticises Islam openly, or promotes any other faith with a jail sentence of up to three years. Ahmed Benchemsi wrote that this says that “when you live in Morocco, you can think whatever you want of religion, but you better keep it for yourself.”
Habib is now said to be moving between the homes of friends, after his parents threatened to hand him over to the police if he were to return to their home in Casablanca. Even though he is uncertain about what will happen to him next, Habib is still committed to his beliefs, and called on his fellow Moroccans to push for the country to “work together to apply the universal human rights.”
“If Morocco doesn’t apply universal human rights, we will turn into another religious dictatorship”, he said.
April 3rd, 2012
A
Moroccan rapper and activist
was arrested by security forces last week, following claims that one of his songs is offensive to a public institution. Megaz El Haked was summoned to a court on the charge of offending a public authority. Lyrics in in one of his songs criticising the political situation in Morocco were deemed to be defamatory. The rapper and activist has been refused provisional release whilst he awaits his trial, which is expected to take place on 4 April. El Haked was imprisoned last year for four months on trumped-up charges, before being released in January 2012.
February 14th, 2012
The most recent issue of the French magazine “Le Nouvel Observateur” was
confiscated by Moroccan authorities after it published an image from the French-Iranian film “Persepolis”. The issue, due to be distributed on 2 February, included an article on the animated film, which tells the story of the suffering of an Iranian family following the Iranian revolution in 1979 and the main character’s subsequent exile to France. Morocco withstood pressure from Iranian authorities to ban the film in May 2008, screening it at the Meknes International Festival of Animated Film (FICAM).
June 13th, 2011
Rachid Nini, the editor of one of
Morocco’s leading newspapers, has been sentenced to a year in prison and fined 100 euros after he was convicted of compromising “the security and integrity of the nation and citizens”. Nini had been held for over two months before the trial took place and had been
refused bail three times. A number of his editorials had attempted to expose the corrupt practices of the Morrocan government.
February 22nd, 2011
Moroccan youth organised protests through YouTube, Twitter and Facebook, just like activists across the Arab world. But are their aims the same? Jillian C York reports
(more…)
April 8th, 2010
Moroccan journalist
Mohammed Attaoui was convicted of extortion and sentenced to two years in prison on
March 22. He claims he was set up by a former source and a forestry ministry official. Attaoui said he gave him the money — about
1,000 dirhams (90 euros) — to travel to Rabat or Meknes to take a test for a promotion, but he was arrested two hours later by national guard officers. He has staged a hunger strike demanding a fair trial. Attaoui, an environmental correspondent for the daily newspaper Al-Monataf wrote an expose about the illegal cedar wood trade in Morocco, and was arrested just 20 days after it was published.
November 18th, 2009
Moroccan newspaper Al-Michaal was banned on 13 November after editor in chief Driss Chahtan was sentenced to one year in prison and a 10,000 dirham fine as punishment for his articles about the health of King Mohamed VI. Two other journalists on the paper, Rasheed Mahameed and Mostafa Hiran, were sentenced to three months in prison and fines of 5000 dirham for writing similar articles.
October 2nd, 2009
The Moroccan government is suing daily newspaper Akhbar Al Youm after it published a cartoon of Prince Moulay Ismail. The government said the
cartoon showed “blatant disrespect” to the royal family.
Read more
here
