Demonstration in support of beleaguered weekly TelQuel

Around 300 people gathered yesterday in Casablanca in a show of support for the independent weekly TelQuel, which has been sentenced to pay a total of 1,960,000 dirhams (180,000 euros) in damages and fines since August. The participants include members of neighbourhood and youth groups as well as representatives of the Committee for Freedom of Expression and the Press, a new entity that brings together the National Union of the Moroccan Press, member of left-wing parties and human rights groups, the Truth and Justice Forum and a civil society group called ATTAC Maroc. Reached by phone, TelQuel editor Ahmed Benchemsi told Reporters Without Borders he was very moved by the show of support and said he saw it as “a sign that TelQuel has people's trust.” --------------------------------------------------------------------------31.10.2005 Weekly ordered to pay massive libel damages for second time in three months The sentence of 900,000 dirhams (82,300 euros) in damages plus a fine of 10,000 dirhams (915 euros) which a Casablanca court passed on the independent weekly TelQuel on 24 October for libelling the head of a child relief NGO was “out of all proportion,” Reporters Without Borders said today, accusing the judicial authorities of hounding the weekly in recent months The sentence brings the total in damages and fines which TelQuel has been ordered to pay in libel cases in the past three months to 1,935,000 dirhams (177,000 euros), the press freedom organisation noted. “We hope these sentences will be considerably reduced on appeal as the Moroccan media should not be choked to death by exorbitant libel damages awards,” Reporters Without Borders added. Last week's sentence was prompted by a report in May that Touria Bouabid, the president of a child relief organisation, had been summoned by the police for questioning about embezzlement within her NGO. The information came from police sources and was reported in three other newspapers as well as TelQuel - Al Ahdath Al Maghribiya, Al Ayam and Al Ousbouîya Al Jadida. All four newspapers published retractions after the information turned out to be false, but Bouabid brought successful libel actions against all of them, although the sentences for the others were more lenient. Al Ousbouîya Al Jadida was ordered to pay 30,000 dirhams (2,750 euros) while Al Ahdath Al Maghribiya and Al Ayam were ordered to pay de 100,000 dirhams (9,150 euros). A senior member of TelQuel's staff said: “The aim is no longer to educate us, but simply to bring us down.” In an earlier case, TelQuel managing editor Ahmed Reda Benchemsi and news editor Karim Boukhari were sentenced by a Casablanca court on 15 August to pay damages of 1 million dirhams (90,000 euros) and a fine of 25,000 dirhams (2 250 euros) for libelling a parliamentarian. They also got two months suspended prison sentences. The suit was prompted by an article entitled “A brunette's secret” in which Boukhari described the career of a woman identified only by the pseudonym Asmaa who began as a “cheïkha” (popular dancer) and ended up becoming a legislator. The suit was brought by parliamentarian Halima Assali, who assumed the story referred to her.