Letter to king in support of imprisoned journalist's royal pardon request

Reporters Without Borders wrote today to King Mohammed VI supporting the request for a royal pardon made by Mostapha Hurmatallah of the weekly Al Watan Al An, who has been held for the past 135 days in Casablanca's Okacha prison. “This journalist was harshly sentenced to seven months in prison for publishing an internal DGST memo,” Reporters Without Borders wrote in its letter, referring to the General Directorate for Territorial Surveillance, an intelligence agency. “While Reporters Without Borders does not underestimate the gravity of this case, we believe this sentence was disproportionate and contrary to international legal practices. “Charged under the criminal code, not the press law, with ‘receiving documents obtained by criminal means,' he allegedly failed to respect the professional confidentiality that state agents are required to observe. But Mostapha Hurmatallah just acted according to his duty as a journalist to inform. “No Moroccan journalists had been made to serve a prison sentence for nearly four years. The Kingdom's journalists, like Reporters Without Borders, do not understand why Hurmatallah is being kept in prison. He wrote to your staff in February requesting a royal pardon. Given your decision to release Internet user Fouad Mourtada in March, we hope you will now be equally generous with Hurmatallah, who should not be in prison.” The justice ministry's department of criminal affairs is believed to be still considering the pardon request Hurmatallah submitted in February. Mourtada, an Internet user who had been sentenced to three years in prison for “usurping the identity” of the king's brother online, was freed under a royal pardon after 43 days in detention. Hurmatallah went on hunger strike from 2 to 4 May to protest against his continuing detention and to mark World Press Freedom Day.