Morocco: human rights activist has prison sentence reduced

Human rights activist Rida Benotmane has had his prison sentence reduced from three years to eighteen months by the Rabat Court of Appeal, his defence lawyer said on Tuesday. Benotmane was sentenced after being found guilty of charges including “insulting organised bodies” related to posts on Facebook and YouTube.

Lawyer Mohammed Ennouini told Agence France-Presse that the defence team had petitioned for the activist’s acquittal.

Benotmane is a member of the Moroccan Association for Human Rights (AMDH). He was arrested on 9 September last year, after being questioned about posts on social media dating back to 2021. In particular, it was his call to “protest against the security extremism that our country witnesses” that attracted the notice of the authorities, his lawyer confirmed earlier. He was sentenced by the Rabat Court of First Instance in November.

The defence lawyers sought his acquittal on the basis that he was exercising his right to freedom of speech. However, the appeal court was not convinced. The AMDH and Amnesty International had earlier called on the Moroccan authorities to release him and drop the prosecution case against him.

In a similar case, local media reported a two-year prison sentence for blogger Yassine Benchekroun at the beginning of February. He was arrested and prosecuted on charges including “insulting an organised body” and “insulting a constitutional institution,” due to his Facebook posts criticising the authorities and politicians.

Moroccan and international human rights organisations also call for the release of activist Saida El-Alami, who was charged in a similar case and sentenced to two years in prison in April last year. The sentence was increased to three years by the court of appeal. She was charged with “publishing and spreading false allegations and facts against people with the intent to defame them,” after posts on Facebook.

Another blogger, Fatima Karim, 39, was sentenced in August to two years in prison for posts on the same social media platform that included sarcastic remarks about Qur’anic verses and prophetic sayings. Her remarks were determined to be “offensive to Islam”.

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