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Morocco Cracks Down on Social Media Critics, Rights Groups Demand Release
Thursday 6 February 2020, by
The Moroccan authorities have arrested since September 2019, about ten activists, artists or other citizens for having harshly criticized the government on social networks. A deplorable situation, denounced by two human rights NGOs.
"Lack of respect due to the king", "offense to the institutions of the State", "outrage towards public officials", are among the charges brought against these young people, in detention for freedom of expression, deplore Human Rights Watch and the Moroccan Association of Human Rights (AMDH), in a joint statement.
These two associations also demand their immediate release and the abandonment of legal proceedings against them. They also argue that none of the defendants were prosecuted under the press and publishing code, but rather on the basis of criminal law.
Among these detainees are journalist Omar Radi, who risks up to a year in prison for criticizing a judge on Twitter, and two YouTubers sentenced to four and three years in prison "for lack of respect for the king".
To these two detainees are added the cases of two young high school students, sentenced to three and four years in prison for having respectively shared on Facebook the lyrics of a controversial song and for having chanted in a stadium a rap song that he had written. Note that the sentence of the high school student composer was reduced on appeal to eight months.