ISLP is thrilled to report that Moroccan journalist Hamid El Mahdaoui has been released from prison. ISLP’s Media Law Working Group has been following his case closely since February 2019, including through trial observation and intervention through the filing of an amicus curiae brief on behalf of El Mahdaoui.
A critic of the Moroccan government, El Mahdaoui was arrested after covering the extensive government protests in Morocco’s northern Rif region in 2016-2017. He was sentenced to three years in prison for “inciting participation in banned protest” and “threatening national security.” A team led by Richard Winfield, chair of ISLP’s Media Law Working Group (MLWG), attended El Mahdaoui’s appellate proceedings in Casablanca in the Spring of 2019, where they observed that El Mahdaoui and the other defendants had been tortured by prison authorities, in direct contravention to Morocco’s participation in two international human rights treaties. Their appeals denied, El Mahdaoui and the other defendants were sent back to prison. The MLWG’s Final Report of Trial Observers on the Hirak-El Rif Appeal, in which the observers detail the proceedings of what can only be described as a show trial, can be read here. Winfield continued to press the Moroccan government on this matter, bringing attention to it through a keynote address at a European Parliament meeting and through an amicus curiae brief which Winfield and a team from Clifford Chance presented to the Court of Cassation in Rabat. El Mahdaoui was released on July 20.
ISLP supports journalists and watchdog non-governmental organizations that investigate and report on poor practices related to human rights and economic development. Our Media Law Working Group aims to protect freedom of expression, increase accountability, and limit abuses directed against journalists.