Morocco / Middle East & North Africa

  
A man smiles for photographers in front of a doorway as other people exiting the same building look on.

Bertha Foundation: Omar Radi’s arrest blocked Moroccan land rights exposé

The 10th time journalist Omar Radi was summoned by Moroccan police this summer, he was arrested on multiple charges including undermining state security and sexual assault, as CPJ documented in July. He was placed in solitary confinement in the Oukacha Prison in Casablanca to reduce the risk of exposure to COVID-19, and remained there as…

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Journalist Omar Radi arrested, charged in Morocco

New York, July 29, 2020 – Moroccan authorities must release journalist Omar Radi immediately and refrain from filing retaliatory charges against the press, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today. Today, the National Brigade of Judicial Police summoned Radi, a reporter at the independent Le Desk news website, and then transferred him to the Casablanca…

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Journalists Omar Radi and Imad Stitou detained overnight in Morocco

On July 5, 2020, police in Casablanca arrested Omar Radi and Imad Stitou, investigative journalists at the Moroccan Le Desk news website, for alleged “public intoxication and violence,” and detained them overnight, according to Le Desk and news reports. The journalists were held in police custody and then released on July 6 pending an investigation…

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CPJ calls on Moroccan authorities to stop harassing Omar Radi

New York, July 2, 2020–Moroccan authorities must immediately stop harassing Omar Radi, investigative journalist at the news website Le Desk, and allow him to work and travel freely, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today. Yesterday, the National Brigade of Judicial Police in Casablanca summoned Radi to appear today in connection to an investigation into…

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CPJ, 80 media and rights groups urge African heads of state to release jailed journalists

CPJ and 80 media, press freedom, and human rights organizations write to African heads of state to call on their respective governments to release all jailed journalists amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

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A man reads a newspaper at a stall near the Medina of Rabat, Morocco, on March 16, 2017. Morocco, Yemen, Oman, and Jordan recently ordered newspapers to cease production, citing fears of spreading the COVID-19 virus. (AP/Mosa'ab Elshamy)

Jordan, Oman, Morocco, and Yemen suspend newspaper production, citing COVID-19 fears

Beginning on March 17, 2020, authorities in Jordan, Oman, Morocco, and Yemen issued decrees suspending newspaper printing and distribution in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, according to news reports and government statements.

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Maati Monjib, right, chats with Moroccan journalist Hicham Mansouri in Rabat, Morocco, January 17, 2016. Amnesty International reported this month that Monjib has been sent malicious messages in an attempt to install spyware on his phone. (AP Photo/Abdeljalil Bounhar)

Q&A: Moroccan press freedom advocate and NSO Group spyware target Maati Monjib

Pegasus, the cellphone spyware tool sold by the Israeli firm NSO Group, is one of the most powerful surveillance systems governments can buy, experts say. Researchers who study it have detected “45 countries where Pegasus operators may be conducting surveillance operations,” and detailed its capabilities: whoever tricks the target into clicking on a link that…

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A demonstrator holds up a sign showing the portrait of Hajar Raissouni, a Morrocan journalist of the daily newspaper Akhbar El-Youm, during a protest outside a courthouse in the capital, Rabat, on September 9, 2019. (AFP/Fadel Senna)

Moroccan authorities arrest journalist Hajar Raissouni

Moroccan security forces arrested Hajar Raissouni, a reporter for independent news website Akhbar al-Youm, on August 31, 2019, as she was leaving her doctor’s office with her fiancé in Rabat, according to her employer and Huffington Post Maghreb. Akhbar al-Youm reported that plainclothes agents also arrested her fiancé, the doctor, and two medical staff from…

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Moroccan investigative journalist Omar Radi, who at the time worked for the website Le Desk, the website's headquarters in Casablanca, Morocco, on September 18, 2015. Radi and other independent journalists told CPJ about a climate of pervasive surveillance and harassment in the country. (AP Photo/Abdeljalil Bounhar)

Moroccan independent journalists describe climate of pervasive surveillance, harassment

In March 2015, Hicham Mansouri emailed an anti-malware company, suspicious of possible signs that someone was able to access his device remotely, without permission. He remembers exchanging a few messages with the software company, but the correspondence was interrupted after a few days, when around 10 police officers in civilian clothes arrived at his home…

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A Moroccan policeman guards a checkpoint on January 11, 2017. Four local journalists were recently handed suspended sentences in Morocco, and a foreign journalist was expelled. (AFP/Fadel Senna)

Morocco hands local journalists suspended prison sentences, expels Dutch journalist

On January 2, 2018, a court in Rabat, Morocco’s capital, charged four local journalists with disclosing unpublished information concerning a parliamentary commission of inquiry, according to one of the journalists, Mohammed Ahdad, who spoke with CPJ. On March 27, 2019, the court gave each journalist a six-month suspended prison sentence and a fine of 10,000…

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