Morocco/Western Sahara: Human Rights Defender’s Conviction Upheld
Rida Benotmane is a member of the Moroccan Association for the Defence of Human Rights (AMDH), a human rights group, a political activist and a journalist. He was already unjustly imprisoned for four years between 2010 and 2014 for online commentaries.
On 9 September 2022, the National Judicial Police Brigade (BNPJ) in Casablanca interrogated Rida Benotmane over a Facebook post and two Youtube videos from 2021, in which he criticized the authorities. After interrogating him, the BNJP arrested Benotmane and ordered his detention pending investigations. On 10 September 2022, the King's prosecutor in the Rabat First Instance Court charged Rida Benotmane with “insulting a body regulated by law”, “insulting public officials while carrying out their duties”, and “broadcasting and distributing false allegations without consent” under Articles 265, 263, and 447-2 of the Penal Code respectively. He was also convicted of breaching the decree law on the state of health emergency.
Rida Benotmane went on hunger strike for 18 days from 9 September 2022 in protest of his arbitrary detention.
Moroccan authorities have increasingly targeted dissenting voices in recent months. In November 2022, Moroccan security agents arrested and detained prominent human rights lawyer Mohamed Ziane, on 11 separate charges in connection to different alleged offences including bogus charges of insulting public officials and institutions, defamation and marital infidelity.He remains detained Arjate 1 prison in Salé. In August 2022, Moroccan blogger and activist Fatima Karim was sentenced to two years in prison and a fine for Facebook posts in which she made satirical comments about the Qur'an. In April 2022, a court sentenced Saida el Alami, a human rights defender and member of the “Femmes Marocaines Contre la Detention Politique” collective, to two years in prison for posting about her ill-treatment by the police and for criticizing the repression of journalists and activists. Blogger Rabie al-Ablaq was also sentenced during the same month to four years in prison for offending the king in two videos posted on social media.
The right to freedom of expression, as stated in Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, to which Morocco is a state party, includes the right to impart and receive information through any media and regardless of frontiers. The Moroccan constitution protects the right to freedom of expression in Chapter 25, which states that freedom of thought and expression is guaranteed in all its forms.