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Moroccan Activist’s Sentence Reduced, Appeals Conviction for Facebook Protest Posts
Wednesday 22 February 2023, by
The human rights activist, Rida Benotmane, has seen his prison sentence reduced from three years to one and a half years by the Moroccan justice system. He had been convicted for publishing on Facebook comments calling for protests against the "extremism" of the police in Morocco. He has decided to appeal.
The activist’s mother welcomed the reduction of the sentence, but also stressed that she considered it a "minimal victory over injustice". Amnesty International had called for the release of Rida Benotmane after his arrest last September.
The activist was prosecuted for "humiliating an institution". The comments posted on Facebook were considered an incitement to "disrupt public order and humiliate an institution." He had criticized "police violence" and called for a more open and diverse society in ideological and religious terms.
The reduction of the activist’s sentence could be related, it is thought, to the recent resolution of the European Parliament calling for the release of Moroccan journalists convicted. Amnesty International had denounced the "absurd processes" used by the authorities to silence critical voices.
In July 2022, Human Rights Watch (HRW) had published a report denouncing the "tactics" used by Morocco to muzzle critical voices, including convictions for crimes such as money laundering, espionage, human trafficking, state security or insult to the police and the monarchy.