Morocco | Activist Sentenced to 2 Years in Prison for Insults
Morocco | Activist Sentenced to 2 Years in Prison for Insults
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A Casablanca court sentenced Moroccan activist and blogger Saida El Alami today (30) to two years in prison and a fine of five thousand dirhams (475 euros) for defaming people and injuring police and the judicial system, reported the Lusa.
Casablanca, Morocco | The charges are based on messages Alami posted on Facebook, her lawyer Suad Brahma told Efe.
Detained on 23 March and still in pre-trial detention, the activist was convicted of three offenses of injury (to public institutions, officials and court decisions) and a fourth offense of defamation of persons.
The prosecution found that Alami published false news about those involved in her messages on that social network.
“It is very sad and regrettable. We have presented allegations with strong and constant legal grounds, but it is like pouring water on the sand,” Brahma said after hearing the sentence.
The Amnesty International recently denounced that the activist was on trial for publications in which she publicly denounced the harassment she suffered from the security services and criticized the repression of journalists and activists.
On her Facebook account, Alami devoted many messages to denouncing the convictions of journalists Tawfiq Bouachrin, Omar Radi and Suleiman Raisuni, sentenced in separate cases to fifteen, six and five years in prison, respectively, for sexual offences.
In other messages, she criticized the country’s leaders, namely King Mohamed VI, whom she called a “despot”, and the judicial system, which she called “corrupt”.
On Monday, an activist from the northern Rif region, Rabia Ablaq, was sentenced to four years in prison by the Alhucemas Court of First Instance, in northeastern Morocco, for insulting the king on social media.
Amnesty International recently accused the Moroccan authorities of “intensifying harassment against human rights activists and defenders in recent months”.
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