Moroccan Rights Activist Suspended from University, Calls Decision ’Illegal’

Maâti Monjib no longer has the right to work as a professor at the Institute of African Studies (IEA) in Rabat. The decision was notified to him on March 1st. He had even observed a 48-hour hunger strike from Wednesday, March 8 to Friday, March 10 to protest against his suspension. "These are illegal decisions and it is a way to scare and sow terror within the teaching community or civil servants who express critical positions towards the authorities," he said at a press conference held in Rabat on March 9, reports enass.ma.

The suspension "until further notice" of the professor is without pay and would be motivated by the legal troubles of the historian who was sentenced in 2021 to one year in prison for "fraud" and "undermining state security" at the end of a trial opened in 2015.

Professor Monjib should return to court on May 11 for an appeal hearing. He is also accused of "misappropriation in the management of a center he had created to promote investigative journalism. His support committee calls for "the cessation of legal proceedings against him" and "the suspension of the decision of the Mohammed V University regarding him".