Free Hajar Raissouni

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) calls for the immediate and unconditional release of Hajar Raissouni, a Moroccan journalist who was arrested on 30 August pending trial and is facing up to two years in prison on charges of having an “illegal abortion” and “sex outside marriage.”

The trial of Raissouni, a reporter for one of Morocco’s last independent newspapers, the Arabic-language daily Akbar Alyaoum, is not unusual in a country where sex charges are often used to harass persons regarded as problematic by the authorities.

Raissouni describes the charges as “fabricated” and “politically motivated” and says they were prompted by her newspaper’s reporting, including her recent articles about persons detained in connection with the so-called “Hirak” protests in Morocco’s Rif region in 2016 and 2017. In a letter published by Akbar Alyaoum, she reported that she was also questioned in police custody about her uncles, Ahmed Rahmouni a well-known Islamist ideologue and government critic, and Soulaiman Raissouni, an outspoken journalist and columnist with Akbar Alyaoum.

RSF firmly condemns all meddling in the private lives of journalists and the use of personal information to defame them and the media they work for. Morocco must respect article 24 of its constitution, which gives everyone the right to privacy.

Help us to put pressure on the Moroccan authorities by signing this petition calling on them to drop the charges against Hajar Raissouni at a matter of the utmost urgency. And share this petition on social networks using the #FreeHajar hashtag.