(RSF/IFEX) – A campaign by at least a dozen pro-government news media in Morocco to disparage journalist Ali Lmrabet and accuse him of “treason” over his remarks on Western Sahara is raising concerns for his safety, RSF warns. The smear campaign is focussing on a report on Polisario Front prisoners of war, written by Lmrabet […]
(RSF/IFEX) – A campaign by at least a dozen pro-government news media in Morocco to disparage journalist Ali Lmrabet and accuse him of “treason” over his remarks on Western Sahara is raising concerns for his safety, RSF warns.
The smear campaign is focussing on a report on Polisario Front prisoners of war, written by Lmrabet in November 2004 for the Spanish daily “El Mundo”, and on an interview with Polisario leader Mohamed Abdelaziz that appeared in the Arabic-language weekly “Al Moustakil” in January. The action comes just two weeks after the authorities blocked Lmrabet’s request for a permit to launch a new weekly newspaper.
“Such a campaign has never been seen before in the Arabic and French-language media,” RSF said. “Moroccan readers and viewers are being presented with one statement after another by pro-Moroccan Sahrawi groups without ever getting the viewpoint of the person concerned.”
The organisation added, “Lmrabet is being attacked just for doing his job as an investigative journalist and, apparently, for interviewing the Polisario chief. He did the interview and transcribed what he heard. Everyone should be free to express their viewpoint without having to fear being called a traitor.”
On 3 February 2005, several human rights organisations from the southern provinces staged a sit-in outside Parliament, the Communication Ministry and the Moroccan Human Rights Association (Association marocaine des droits humains, AMDH) in Rabat to take issue with Lmrabet for saying the Sahrawi population in Tindouf (in Algeria) enjoyed freedom of movement. The police did not stop the protest although they have violently dispersed anyone else trying to demonstrate outside Parliament for the past five years.
In the course of a week, at least 10 daily newspapers have run the headline “Ali Lmrabet’s Treason” on their front page with the journalist’s photo. Reports about the sit-in were carried by the 2M and RTM television stations. A total of 11 minutes of the evening news programmes on 3 February were given over to the sit-in coverage.
Moroccan Sahara association president Réda Taoujni, who did not take part in the sit-in, told RSF: “We are disgusted by this unseemly affaire. If they want to settle personal scores with Ali Lmrabet, they should leave Western Sahara out of it. Ali Lmrabet is a fervent defender of the principle that the Sahara is Moroccan.”
The winner of the 2003 RSF – Fondation de France Prize, Lmrabet said, “You will never find anything written by me expressing anything other than the view I have always defended, namely a Moroccan Sahara that is not joined to us by force or by money, but by human rights, solidarity, freedom and justice.”
Lmrabet added, “I am for [a] referendum on self-determination, the Baker Plan and, on principle, the inalienable right of a people to determine its own fate. This entire operation against me has been mounted by the Interior Ministry in order to prevent me from relaunching my newspaper, to prevent me from expressing my views about everything to do with public life in my country.”
