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Alert

Newspaper editor Ali Lmrabet remains imprisoned following Appeals Court decision

(RSF/IFEX) - RSF has voiced its outrage over an Appeals Court's 5 June 2003 decision to keep newspaper editor Ali Lmrabet in prison. Lmrabet, who has been on hunger strike since 6 May and hospitalised since 26 May, came to the court in a wheelchair for the hearing, which was the first in his appeal. The next hearing is set for 10 June. Lmrabet was jailed on 21 May.

"One would have hoped the Moroccan justice system would ease the situation and show clemency by ordering Lmrabet's provisional release," RSF Secretary-General Robert Ménard said. "Instead, its inflexibility seems to be confirming the fears of those who say that Lmrabet's imprisonment has sounded the death knell for the independent press." Ménard added, "People thought King Mohammed VI's Morocco was on the road to democracy, but they were clearly mistaken."

Lmrabet is the owner and editor of two satirical weeklies, the French-language "Demain Magazine" and its Arabic-language version, "Douman". He is also RSF's correspondent in Morocco.

On 21 May, a Rabat court sentenced him to four years' imprisonment for "insulting the person of the king", committing an "offence against territorial integrity" and an "offence against the monarchy". The court also fined him 20,000 dirhams (approx. US$2,300; 2,000 euros) and banned his two weeklies. He was taken from the courtroom to a prison cell.

Lmrabet was convicted on the basis of articles and cartoons about the annual allowance that Parliament grants the royal family (detailed in a Finance Ministry document distributed to parliamentarians), a cartoon strip on the history of slavery, a photomontage of Moroccan political personalities, and an interview with a Moroccan republican who advocated self-determination for Western Sahara.

When he began his hunger strike on 6 May, the editor said he was acting to defend his rights, to put an end to repeated acts of intimidation against his printer and others who would otherwise be ready to print his weeklies, and in order to be able to enjoy the right to freedom of movement. On 26 May, at the end of his third week on hunger strike, he was rushed from prison to Rabat's Avicenne hospital.