July 28 (EUROPA PRESS) –
The NGO Human Rights Watch (HRW) has denounced this Thursday that the Moroccan authorities use covert tactics to form an “ecosystem of repression” and silence the dissenting voices of activists, journalists, and critical citizens.
“The authorities use a manual of clandestine tactics to suppress dissidents while striving to keep Morocco’s image intact as a country that respects rights,” said HRW Middle East and North Africa director Lama Fakih.
In a 129-page report, HRW details these strategies through the testimonies of 89 people inside and outside Morocco, including people subjected to police or judicial harassment, their relatives and relatives, human rights defenders, social and political activists, lawyers , journalists and trial witnesses.
Such tactics include unfair trials and lengthy prison sentences on criminal charges, harassment and smear campaigns in state-aligned media outlets, and attacks on family members of dissidents, as well as digital surveillance and, in some cases, physical and criminal intimidation. assaults.
Since King Mohammed VI ascended the throne of Morocco in 1999, HRW has documented dozens of convictions of journalists and activists on charges related to the violation of their right to freedom of expression, according to a statement from the organization.
Thus, the NGO has indicated that the dissidents, their relatives or their associates were sentenced for charges that violated internationally recognized human rights and, in the case of being legitimate charges, irregularities were recorded during the trials.
“Whether or not they ended up in court or in prison, the people whose cases HRW examined were subjected to widespread smear campaigns by a constellation of websites that a group of 110 independent Moroccan journalists call ‘smear media.'” , explained the NGO.
It must be remembered that the Pegasus scandal, which affected several countries, also put the Moroccan authorities in check, who denied the alleged use of the Israeli software Pegasus, from the company NSO, to spy on politicians and journalists between 2019 and 2021.
The investigation around this tool is being carried out by the Forbidden Stories media consortium, based in Paris, which ensures that the evidence has been obtained from the phones themselves through a forensic analysis carried out by the security laboratory of Amnesty International.
One of the Pegasus targets whose case the ONH HRW examined is that of the economist and human rights activist Fuad Abdelmumni, who, in addition to being subjected to video surveillance, has suffered sexual blackmail due to the dissemination of his intimate videos to silence his critics.
“There is a climate of inquisition,” said Hisham Mansuri, a journalist who was granted asylum in France after spending ten months in prison in Morocco for adultery. “Sex, drugs, alcohol * if they don’t find anything, they will fabricate accusations (against you),” he has told Human Rights Watch.
The tactics documented by Human Rights Watch violate Morocco’s international human rights obligations, including the right to privacy, freedom of expression and association, and the right to due process and a fair trial for those accused. organization.
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