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Amnesty International Urges Morocco to Free Journalist Facing Abortion Charges
Friday 6 September 2019, by
After the media professionals who had taken the lead by using the services of a lawyer in order to know about this case, it is Amnesty International’s turn to be outraged and call on the Moroccan authorities to "immediately release" Hajar Raïssouni and "drop all charges" against the Akhbar Al Yaoum journalist, "accused of having had an abortion and having had sexual relations outside of marriage".
According to the Amnesty International statement, published three days before the journalist’s trial, scheduled for September 9 in Rabat, "the arrest of Hajar Raïssouni and four other people (her fiancé Amin Rifaat, the doctor, and two other people working at the clinic) is totally unfair".
According to the organization, "these allegations constitute a scandalous violation of her privacy," said Heba Morayef, Amnesty International’s Regional Director for the Middle East and North Africa.
According to her, while "Moroccan law criminalizes extramarital sex and abortion, the NGO believes that under international law, "women have a right to physical and personal autonomy that includes the freedom to make their own decisions about sexuality and reproduction".
In short, for Amnesty International, "the criminalization of health services that only women need, such as abortion, constitutes discrimination based on sex".
To recall, Hajar Raïssouni was arrested on August 31 for "illegal abortion" and for "extramarital sexual relations" as she was leaving her gynecologist’s office in Rabat. On Thursday, September 5, her lawyer said the journalist would file a complaint against the police for torture, "following the forced medical examination she underwent to force her to confess to acts she did not commit".
For her part, the journalist believes that her arrest is above all "a political affair aimed at punishing her" for having written several articles on the Rif Hirak. Indeed, Hajar Raïssouni has questioned the father of Nasser Zefzafi, leader of the protest movement, on several occasions.
A position flatly rejected by the Prosecutor of the King who affirmed, in a statement published on Thursday, September 5, that "the arrest of the journalist has nothing to do with her profession".
Amnesty International is already calling on "the authorities to release the journalist immediately and unconditionally and to drop all charges against her and the other people involved in this case".