(RSF/IFEX) – In a letter to Minister of the Interior Ahmed Midaoui, RSF protested the seizure of an issue of the French weekly “Courrier International”. RSF Secretary-General Robert Ménard asked the minister to “reconsider this decision, which shows once again that the authorities do not hesitate to censor foreign newspapers when they report on sensitive […]
(RSF/IFEX) – In a letter to Minister of the Interior Ahmed Midaoui, RSF protested the seizure of an issue of the French weekly “Courrier International”. RSF Secretary-General Robert Ménard asked the minister to “reconsider this decision, which shows once again that the authorities do not hesitate to censor foreign newspapers when they report on sensitive issues.” The organisation denounced “the real contradiction between the statements made by Prime Minister Abderrahmane Youssoufi, who said on 4 December that he ‘supported press freedom,’ and recent bans on foreign publications.” RSF recalled that since 1 January 2001 three foreign weeklies have been censored by the Moroccan authorities.
According to information collected by RSF, the 17 May issue of the French weekly “Courrier International” was seized by the Moroccan authorities, who offered no explanation for their action. The issue included an article titled “In the biggest Berber nation of the world” (taken from the Moroccan weekly “Demain Magazine” dated 12 May), which dealt with the Berber issue in Morocco. The text was accompanied by a cartoon of King Mohammed VI that was not included in the Moroccan issue, which was distributed without incident.
Earlier this year, issue 1528 of “Cambio 16”, dated 19 March, was banned by the Moroccan authorities (see IFEX alert of 14 May 2001). The issue included a report titled “The Sahara Prepares for War”. In his article, Rocio Castrillo interviewed Brahim Gali, a member of the Polisario Front’s national office, who spoke of “the intransigent and colonial will of Morocco’s expansionist regime.”
