Moroccan reporter Mostapha Hurmatallah of the weekly Al Watan Al An has been freed on completing his prison sentence. He had been in Casablanca's Oukacha prison since February 19, when Morocco's highest court of appeal ordered him to go back to jail to serve the rest of a seven-month term. Hurmatullah was released on July 25.
"We welcome Hurmatallah's release with joy, but we reiterate our firm condemnation of the original decision to imprison him just for doing his job," Paris-based Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) said. "We now hope that this is the end of the era when people are jailed in Morocco because of what they write."
Hurmatallah, whose request for a royal pardon was ignored, told RSF that conditions in prison were very harsh. He was put in a cell with convicted criminals and his visits were restricted. He added that he nonetheless hoped that he would be the last journalist to be jailed in his country in connection with their work.
He was initially sentenced on August 15, 2007 to eight months in prison on a charge of "receiving documents obtained by criminal means" in connection with a special report about a state of alert in the July 14, 2007 issue of Al Watan Al An.
The following month his sentence was reduced to seven months and he was released provisionally. However, he was returned to prison in February after the country's highest court rejected his appeal.
His release means that there are no journalists currently in prison in Morocco.
