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Moroccan Journalist’s Abortion Case Unravels as Medical Expert Challenges Evidence
Saturday 28 September 2019, by
For a month now, in Morocco, the case of "Hajar Raissouni", the journalist imprisoned for "illegal abortion" and "extramarital sexual relations", has mobilized civil society against repressive laws. Chafik Chraïbi, President of the Moroccan Association for the Fight against Clandestine Abortion, could not remain on the sidelines of this issue that is the subject of great debate. In an interview with the French newspaper Libération, the gynecologist-obstetrician shared his explanations on the subject.
According to Chafik Chraïbi, the 28-year-old woman probably did not have an abortion. Indeed, he recalls, the two expert assessments at the request of the Judicial Police did not at any time reveal a case of abortion.
For the first one, which took place just after the journalist’s arrest, "it was young trainee doctors who took care of it at the Souissi maternity hospital in Rabat". They "do not say at any time whether they find traces of abortion on the cervix," he specifies.
The next day, he notes, "other examinations are carried out by the head of department who notes stigmas of old infections without specifying whether he sees, or not, the existence of lesions due to an abortion".
Chafik Chraïbi mainly observes that, during the second expert assessment, "the dosage of the pregnancy hormone is much lower than the presumed age of pregnancy", which, according to him, "shows that the pregnancy stopped 48 hours earlier and that there was probably no induced abortion. In this case, the miscarriage is likely," he concludes.
When asked whether the medical team could have been instrumentalized by the Judicial Police, the gynecologist-obstetrician said they would not be capable of going that far, attributing all this to "a serious lack of professionalism".
Furthermore, he stated: "I am outraged that Morocco is applying a law dating back to the 1960s that has nothing to do with today’s society".
In addition, he estimated that Hajar Raïssouni is the first woman imprisoned for abortion in Morocco. "There was not even a complaint against her to explain these prosecutions," he laments.