Saturday, November 08, 2008

Media silenced and the future of freedom of speech is uncertain in Morocco

Global Voices Advocacy - Defending free speech online.



pictures are from hespress.com



The saga of silencing Moroccan journalists still continues .Last Ramadan , Mohammed Erraji,an independent journalist was arrested to be jailed for two years for his free article on dependency .Two weeks ago,a student was also arrested for his innocent thoughts to show off before his mates “reforming” the moto of Morocco.

Today,a moroccan tribunal has condemned El Massae, an independent newspaper edited by Rashid Nini,to pay off a large sum of money .Everybody agrees that the state of Morocco practices coercive methods against media in order to silence it .However, Morocco, for one, is considered to be making landmark progress in civil liberties in a region where such rights have been virtually non-existent, yet free media has long been suffering under the current regime.

Eyes of great non–government associations such as CMDH,IFEX,Humain Rights Watch and reporters sans Frontiere keep their eyes on this cat and mouse struggle that Morocco is having between its government and free journalists .Still, too many people are hoping that change could happen in Morocco as it has just happened in the other parts of the world, although some journalists such as Tawfiq Boasharein foresee that the future of freedom of speech in Morocco is uncertain because as he states "In the past, the government used its executive power to repress journalists, but today, the government is using the judiciary system to suppress freedom"

Allal El Alaoui