Morocco

ARTICLE 19, which it said has reviewed the new Moroccan Draft Law No 31.13 on the Right of Access to Information, has found that it fails to adequately recognise the right to information and threatens free expression. The Draft Law No. 31.13 on the Right of Access to Information was adopted by the Moroccan Cabinet on July 31, 2014. The new draft is significantly weaker than previous versions...

The Committee to Protect Journalists has called on Moroccan authorities to drop the charges against Mahmoud Lhaisan, a TV journalist who was arrested on Friday after reporting on police abuse during protests following a World Cup game. Mahmoud Lhaisan is a reporter for Rasd TV, which is affiliated with the Sahrawi people in the Western Sahara region. Rasd TV broadcasts from Sahrawi refugee camps...

The Executive Committee of the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ), meeting in Brussels on 28 and 29 June, has called for the Moroccan government to promote press freedom and protect journalists in the country, rather than attacking and undermining the demeanor of women journalists and the clothing they wear. The call has been made following the report presented to the committee by the...

Reporters Without Borders has reiterated its call for an end to government blocking of the Lakome news website, in effect since October 17, and the withdrawal of all charges against Ali Anouzla, the editor of the site’s Arabic-language version. “The authorities are clearly stalling, both by not responding to Anouzla’s request for the censorship to be lifted and by repeatedly postponing his...

Freedom of expression and human rights organisations have called on the Moroccan authorities for all criminal charges facing Moroccan journalist and editor Ali Anouzla to be dropped at the Rabat court hearing scheduled on February 18. Anouzla, journalist and editor of the Arabic edition of the news website Lakome, was arrested on September 17, 2013 in connection with a September 13 news article...

Moroccan information minister Khalid Naciri obtained the dismissal of Dubai TV chief editor Omar Makhfi and his brother, Jalal, the station’s Morocco correspondent, on June 21 because Jalal referred on the air to opposition calls for protests against tomorrow’s referendum in Morocco on a proposed constitutional reform. The journalists were fired two days after the minister gave a televised address...

A one-year jail sentence and a fine of 1000 dirhams (88 euros) has been imposed by a Casablanca court passed June 14 on Rachid Nini, the editor of Al-Massae, one of Morocco’s leading newspapers, at the end of a trial marked by judicial intransigence, repeated adjournments and a refusal to free him on bail. Held since April 28, the newspaper editor was tried on charges of disinformation and...

Aboubakr Jamaï, the co-founder and former managing director of the weekly newspaper Le Journal Hebdomadaire and a pioneer of the independent press in Morocco, has been awarded the 2010 Gebran Tueni Award, the annual prize of the World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers (WAN-IFRA) that honours an editor or publisher from the Arab region. The award honours the editor or publisher who...

There has been an increasing climate of hostility for Spanish journalists in Morocco, highlighted by official measures to prevent Spanish journalists from covering clashes in the Western Sahara, the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has reported. On Monday, 10 Spanish journalists were prevented from reaching the Saharan city of Laayoune, which is part of an ongoing territorial...

Moroccan authorities have decided to to indefinitely suspend Al-Jazeera's reporting in Morocco. The government withdrew accreditations from Al-Jazeera staff, the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has reported. On Friday, the Ministry of Communications accused Al-Jazeera of not following "the rules of responsible and serious journalistic work." According to a statement...