Paris, August 21, 2011 (SPS)- Reporters Without Borders pointed out that the last "developments point to an escalation in repression of journalists and netizens by the Moroccan authorities" specially in Western Sahara, where Mohamed Ayache Buihi, a reporter for the Moroccan daily Al-Massae and editor of the Saharanow.com website has been beaten with a baton on the back and legs. After showing his press card, the security forces tried to take his camera, and then threw him to the ground and insulted him while he was trying to cover a demonstration in El Aaiún (Western Sahara) on 12 August.
According to a RWB report published yesterday, Hamid Bouffous, a reporter for the newspaper Risalat Al-Oumma and for the Sahara Press and Hespress websites, was treated in a similar manner, despite wearing a vest with the word “Press.”
The international association "strongly condemns the charges of publishing false information that have been brought against Driss Chahtane and Abdel Aziz Gogass, of the arabic weekly Al Michaal because they have dared to denounce in an article appeared in 20 July the close links between certain governors and the Authenticity and Modernity Party, a new party founded by former interior minister Fouad Ali El-Himma, a close friend of the king.
"After being interrogated four times, the two journalists are due to be tried on 29 August. Moustapha Alaouie, the editor of Al-Oussboue-al-Sahafi, Morocco’s leading Arabic-language weekly, and reporter Youssef Meskine have been summoned for questioning over an article on the same subject on 4 August. They could also be prosecuted", the repport said.
“We urge the Moroccan authorities to end this judicial harassment, which runs counter to the intention announced by the government in April to reform the press law and make it more democratic,” Reporters Without Borders said. “We regret that it has become so difficult for Moroccan journalists to cover domestic politics in the run-up to October’s parliamentary elections”, it concludes. (SPS)