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Tunisian Organisations Call on the Moroccan Authorities to release the editor of “Akhbar Al-Yaum” newspaper and end the criminalization of freedom of expression and press

1 June، 2020

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The undersigning Tunisian societies call on the Moroccan authorities to release Suleiman Rissouni, chief-editor of the independent newspaper “Akhbar Al-Yaum”, and stop the fabrication of criminal cases to silence journalists and human rights activists and the criminalization freedom of expression and the press.

According to the Moroccan press and human rights sources, Suleiman Rissouni, who was arrested on Friday, May 22, near his house in Casablanca, appeared Monday morning, 25 May, in front of the Deputy General Prosecutor of the King at the Appeal Court in Casablanca. After that, the investigating judge charged him with “violating by using violence and detention,” and ordered that he be placed in Okasha prison in the same city, and fixed June 11th, as a date for the “detailed interrogation” session.

Suleiman Al-Rissouni’s arrest comes about eight months after the release – with a royal pardon – of his colleague in the newspaper “Akhbar Al-Yaum”, Hajer Al-Rissouni. A one-year arrest order was issued against Hajer as well as against her fiancé following “illegal abortion” charge after a trial which was described by Arab and international human rights organizations as “lacking fair trial standards”. The trial of the editor-in-chief of this independent newspaper also begins less than two years after the issuance of an order that is no less violating of the constitution of the Kingdom of Morocco and its commitment to respect the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. The order states the imprisonment of the newspaper’s editor-in-chief, Tawfik Bouachrine, who has been sentenced to 12 years. Bouachrine was convicted of “sexual assaults.” The United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention considered that the Bouachrine’s deprivation of freedom was “arbitrary” and called for his release and reparation for him:

The Moroccan “Freedom Now” Association has condemned the arrest of the editor-in-chief of “Akhbar Al-Yaum” newspaper, calling for “his immediate release and respect of the Moroccan constitution that protects international freedoms and covenants” ratified by the Moroccan state. It has also considered that his arrest was expected “in view of his strong openings” and the defamation he was subjected to, for months, in pro-Palestinian media.

The undersigned societies affirm that protecting the freedom of expression and press in Morocco and the rest of the Arab countries is a prerequisite for the eradication of corruption and tyranny, which is ravaging its institutions and threatening their further regression.