The Morocco Court of Appeal in April 2019 upheld the convictions and prison sentences of 43 defendants, including several journalists and alleged ringleaders of street protests in 2016-2017 in the Berber Rif region.
As international observers, lawyers from International Senior Lawyers Project monitored three hearings of the Court in Casablanca. Their Final Report (below) concludes with the following criticism:
“The hearings we observed presented a textbook case of the high-visibility show trial featuring the familiar ingredients: confessions extracted by torture; extended pre-trial detentions with solitary confinement; overreaching public prosecutors; overcharging indictments; vaguely worded laws; reliance on illegally obtained evidence; defense counsel in fear of arrest; a Presiding Judge’s language and demeanor devoid of any semblance of impartiality; and the foreordained outcome, all accomplished while maintaining a facade of conventional, institutional normality.”
The defendants will seek to appeal to the Morocco Court of Cassation. If the Court accepts their appeal, ISLP plans to ask the Court to accept an amicus curiae brief.
Background coverage:
- Since March, our volunteers served as trial observers in controversial, politicized criminal trials in Casablanca and Istanbul. In each case autocratic regimes punished freedom of expression and freedom of association, and denied defendants the right to a fair trial.
- Thousands of people take to the streets in Rabat, Morocco to demonstrate against the arrest of activists for their involvement in the mass protests in the Northern Rif Berber region.
About the Media Law Working Group
For each of the past eighteen years, about thirty of our media defense lawyers, led by Richard Winfield,have served pro bono helping defend journalists facing prosecution by hostile governments; and helping enact laws and policies protecting freedom of the press and the right of the public to be informed.