The Prosecution of the First Moroccan Blogger

The Arabic Network for Human Rights Information (ANHRI) stated today that Aghadir city in Morocco will witness the first trial of a Moroccan blogger, Mohamed Elrraji, because he posted an article titled “The King Encourages the Dependency of his People” on his webpage (http://almassae.maktoobblog.com)

Mohamed Elrraji has already wrote and published his article last Wednesday, the 3rd of September, on his webpage, then it was posted on the famous Moroccan website “Hespress” (http://hespress.com); on the next day, Thursday, he was called for an investigation that lasted for about seven hours, then the security allowed him to leave, just to return back on Friday to continue their investigations with him; however he was arrested on Friday and charged with “disparagement against the king”.

The security later got the password for his personal e-mail to check it, which is considered illegal, for it defies the laws that protect the privacy of correspondence.

Mohamed Elrraji is considered to be one of the most important Moroccan bloggers, who use their real names when publishing; his articles were mostly characterized by being wisely developed and variable in their content, which dealt with a range of Moroccan issues. Accordingly he was invited to join the authors of the Hespress website on June 2007, where he had a column of his own entitled “Without compliment”.

However the Moroccan government has returned to the Arabic oppression farm, and used their same tyrannical ways, for it followed, arrested, and decided to put Mohamed Elrraji on trial, instead of supporting him and his writings; by now he has joined the long list of the Arabic bloggers who have suffered and are still suffering from their governments due to their freedom of opinion, from such bloggers are Wael Abbas, Alaa Youssef, Abdel Moneim Mahmoud all from Egypt, Mahmoud Al-Youssef from Bahrain, Fouad Al-Farhan from Saudi Arabia, and Abdel Salam from Algeria, in addition to many others.

Mr. Gamal, the executive director of the ANHRI, said that “As if Morocco is using this trial as a way of celebrating its primacy in the number of internet users; it is such a festivity, to practice the same Arab oppressive ways!”

Recently it has become very noticeable that most of the opinion prisoners in Morocco are from the youth, and they have all been put in jail for their free, criticizing writings; for now the Moroccan prisons are filled with young Moroccan students, and on their top the student Jadda Boubkar, who is in precautionary incarceration for more than fifty days.

For more Information:
http://www.anhri.net/en/reports/2008/pr0906.shtml
http://www.anhri.net/en/reports/2008/pr0811.shtml