Amnesty International Demands Release of Moroccan Activist Jailed for Social Media Posts

Rida Benotmane has distinguished himself by posting a number of incendiary messages on social media, such as the one posted on Facebook in 2021, calling for a public march against human rights violations committed by the security forces. On YouTube, he also posted two videos in which he denounced social injustice and the use of the vaccine pass as a tool of repression.

Arrested on September 9, Rida Benotmane was charged the next day with "insulting a body regulated by law", "insulting public officials in the performance of their duties" and "dissemination and distribution of false allegations without agreement", under Articles 265, 263, 266 and 447-2 of the Penal Code, respectively. He is also accused of violating the decree on the state of health emergency.

On the eve of the hearing scheduled for this Thursday, September 22 in the Rabat court, Amna Guellali, Deputy Director of the Middle East and North Africa Program at Amnesty International, believes that "the only crime Rida Benotmane has committed is to express legitimate grievances against the authorities in a few social media posts and videos." For her, it is yet another maneuver to "silence critical voices" in Morocco.

A member of the Moroccan Association of Human Rights (AMDH) and a political activist, Rida Benotmane has already been imprisoned for four years in the past. He is currently on a hunger strike to protest his detention. He is not the only human rights activist imprisoned in Morocco in 2022. There is Saida el Alami, sentenced in April to two years in prison for posting messages about police mistreatment of journalists and other dissenting voices. There is also the blogger Rabie al Ablaq, sentenced in April to four years in prison for insulting the king through two videos posted on social media.