RABAT – The public prosecution at the Court of First Instance in Casablanca has announced the opening of an investigation against a Spanish-language Moroccan weekly newspaper for carrying an article regarded as an affront to the royal regime and territorial unity.
The official Moroccan News Agency, quoting a judicial source, said that the public prosecutor at the Court of First Instance in Casablanca had ordered a judicial police to conduct research on an article titled Spaniards – Friends of Morocco published by Lamaniana in its weekly edition between January 4 and 10. The article contains statements attributed to Spanish personalities that insulted the territorial unity of the country and the royal regime. The article also contains baseless information.
Lamaniana is published by Maroc Soir, which has the support of the higher authorities in Morocco. It is described as a semi-official weekly paper and has been bought by a Saudi investor several years ago, who is regarded close to the royal palace.
The article surprised the journalistic circles, which said the article carried by the paper was most likely an inadvertent mistake. The sources said the article which was carried by Lamaniana was copied from a Spanish web site, and contained a harsh onslaught on the Spanish friends of Morocco. The sentence Al Hassan II had exploited Morocco and invaded the desert appeared in the article.
A Moroccan daily issued in Arabic by the same publishing house carried earlier this year a news item that the king had inaugurated a professional school designed to help prisoners. The story appeared on the front page of the daily with a headline that read King Mohammed VI opens new prison, which was regarded as clear insult to the king.
The paper issued a corrigendum next day apologising for carrying the news item. Moroccan dailies nowadays highlight lawsuits filed against several papers due to the publication of articles and news reports or pictures on issues related to the royal palace or the royal regime. The higher authorities regard them as an affront to the monarchy or slander and abuse of government officials.
The sued papers were said to have harshly slammed the statements of the minister of justice in which he had announced the setting up of a special cell to monitor and follow up the articles and matters carried by the papers and the violations and offences they commit.
A court in Casablanca had issued a suspended order sentencing Rida Shamsi, editor of the weekly paper Tel Kel, which is published in French and the reporter of the same paper Karim Bukhari to a jail term and hefty fines on the charge of slander and insulting a female MP. The same court also convicted the chairman of a charity association of the same jail term and fine for insulting a government official.
A number of editors and journalists will also be summoned for the hearing fixed for January 23 for carrying a report on women inside the royal palace during the eras of three kings – Mohammed V, Hassan II and Mohammed VI.
The new weekly Arabic paper was also accused of insulting the royal regime for publishing an interview with militant activist Nadia Yaseen, the daughter of Shaikh Abdel Salam Yaseen, the supervisor of the hardliner Group of Justice and Benevolence in which she called for the inception of a republic regime, instead of the royal one.
