Jailed Moroccan Journalists’ Lawyers Push for Release Amid Hunger Strike

Raissouni’s lawyers, Mohamed Massoudi and Mohamed Kandil, said on Monday, after visiting their client in the Oukacha prison in Casablanca, that the latter is determined to continue his hunger strike indefinitely if his cause is not heard. They specified that during this month of Ramadan, the accused has decided to respect the fast and takes water and sugary drinks at the end of the day. His wife announced on Monday on her Facebook account that her husband now weighs 58 kilos.

Souleiman Raissouni, editor-in-chief of the newspaper Akhbar Al Yaoum, is being prosecuted for "rape of a young man and kidnapping". He was arrested in front of his home on Friday, May 22 and later brought before the investigating judge of the Court of Appeal of Casablanca.

The lawyers also reported on the situation of the journalist Omar Radi, also in preventive detention in the same prison since July 29 last. He is accused of sexual assault and a crime of undermining state security. According to the lawyers, Radi’s health, who suffered from Crohn’s disease, has deteriorated with the hunger strike he has been on for twenty days and had to suspend it last Friday. On this basis, they requested his transfer to a clinic or an external hospital.

The cases of Raissouni and Radi have generated great solidarity on social networks. A petition has been signed by 300 personalities including journalists and politicians to demand their trial on conditional release, and several sit-ins have been organized in Rabat and Casablanca to denounce their detention. The International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) for its part, condemned on Monday in a press release, "the arbitrary detention and judicial harassment" of Radi and Raissouni.