Morocco Rejects RSF’s Claims on Press Freedom, Defends Judicial Process

It is through the Department of Communication, under the Ministry of Culture, Youth and Sports, that the government delivered its response, which did not convince RSF. In a clarification, the ministry accuses RSF of wanting to "undermine national institutions through false and defamatory assertions", stressing that the organization wrongly refers to the cases of journalists on which the Moroccan justice system has definitively ruled, within the framework of fair trials resulting either in their conviction or in their release after having benefited from a royal pardon.

In developing its argument, the ministry remained on the defensive, claiming that the organization "pretends to ignore that the quality of journalist does not confer any judicial immunity which would allow journalists to enjoy a special status placing them above the law, knowing that it is up to justice and justice alone to rule sovereignly on the grievances against them".

For the Department of Communication, RSF has shown through this capsule "an unforgivable ignorance of the Moroccan institutional system", by "improperly designating the Moroccan intelligence services" as being at the origin of the legal proceedings against journalists. And to add moreover, that the organization has obscured "the fact that Morocco has endowed itself in 2011 with a constitutional tool that strengthens the independence of the judiciary, materialized by the organic laws relating to the Higher Council of the Judiciary and the status of the magistracy adopted in 2016 by Parliament after a participatory approach welcomed by the Venice Commission".

The document from the ministry’s communication department concludes by insisting that the video published by RSF even "denies the alleged victims of sexual abuse their fundamental right to sue their alleged aggressors, by discrediting their complaints in violation of the established universal principles and standards in this matter".