Fines deal potentially fatal blow to Le Journal Hebdomadaire

Reporters Without Borders voiced shock as managing editor Abubakr Jamai and sub-editor Fahd Iraqi, of Le Journal Hebdomadaire were fined three million and 50,000 dirhams (350,000 euros) for defamation, the highest ever slapped on journalists in Morocco. "With this disproportionate sentence - equal to 138 years of a minimum salary in Morocco - the courts are determined to silence one of the best independent publications in the Maghreb, where the press is too often under the control of the government,” said Reporters Without Borders. The complaint that led to the sentence against the newspaper was laid by the European Strategic Intelligence and Security Centre (ESISC), after Le Journal Hebdomadaire published a report questioning the objectivity of a critical report carried out by this “institute” into the separatist Polisario. “The Moroccan authorities never give up and gagging newspapers and their journalists is their latest weapon", said Reporters Without Borders. After sentencing Ali Lmrabet to a ten-year ban on practising his profession and imposing fines totally 177,000 euros for libel on the weekly Tel Quel over a period of less than three months, it is the turn of Le Journal to pay the price for this policy of stifling the investigative press”. "In exploiting a foreign-based fake NGO, the government is reminding journalists of the red lines they should not cross. In the same way anything connected with the Palace or the Western Sahara is taboo.” Jamai and Iraqi, already fined 50,000 dirhams (5,000 euros) in the criminal court were handed down the latest fines on 16 February by a civil court in Rabat which also ordered them to publish the grounds for the decision in three weeklies, Le Journal Hebdomadaire, Maroc Hebdo and El Ousboue. Lawyers for the two journalists said they would appeal. Editor of Le Journal Hebdomadaire, Ali Amar, said that “at no time had the speeches focused on the alleged object of the libel. The plaintiff's lawyer said that it was in reality a political trial and the court was as a result invited to judge the newspaper's editorial line and opinions and not the object of the complaint. The lawyer for the centre produced in evidence previous front pages of the newspaper that dealt with sensitive issues, arguing that it was damaging Morocco's image abroad.”