Beirut — End Repression; Respect Fundamental Rights
A Casablanca Court on March 3, 2025, sentenced a prominent activist, Fouad Abdelmoumni, to six months in prison and fines over a Facebook post, Human Rights Watch and Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN) said today. Moroccan authorities should urgently end their intensifying repression of activists, journalists, and human rights defenders solely for exercising their right to free speech and overturn his conviction.
Abdelmoumni, who was travelling outside the country, was sentenced in absentia to six months in prison and a fine of 2,000 dirhams (about US$208), over a Facebook post during French President Emmanuel Macron's state visit. Abdelmoumni, a member of the Human Rights Watch Middle East and North Africa Advisory Committee, said he would appeal the conviction.
"Dragging yet another Moroccan activist into court and sentencing him to prison merely for expressing an opinion about relations between Morocco and another country shows just how outrageous this crackdown on free speech is," said Balkees Jarrah, acting Middle East and North Africa director at Human Rights Watch. "Macron should press the King of Morocco, his ally, to end these repressive tactics and release all those detained for peaceful speech."
Moroccan police arrestedAbdelmoumni on October 30, 2024, in Temara, near the capital of Rabat. A prosecutor at the Ain Sebaa Criminal Court charged Abdelmoumni on November 1 with "insulting public authorities, spreading false allegations, and reporting a fictitious crime he knew did not occur." The charges were in reference to an October 28 Facebook post criticizing Moroccan-French relations and alleging that the government is using spyware to target dissidents. He was provisionally released on November 1.
The Casablanca public prosecutor said on October 31 that allegations of Moroccan authorities' "involvement in human trafficking, organizing illegal immigration, and spying using Pegasus software" lacked evidence and were false.
A petition signed by nearly 300 activists and human rights advocates called on Moroccan authorities to annul Abdelmoumni's sentence and to "release all political prisoners held in Morocco and other Maghreb countries."
Abdelmoumni is the coordinator of the Moroccan Association in Support of Political Prisoners and an outspoken critic of Morocco's political system. Authorities have targeted him for years, including through digital surveillance, invading his privacy, and repeated harassment by media linked to Moroccan security services, he told Human Rights Watch. He was a political prisoner in 1977 and in 1982, during which he said he was subjected to torture and enforced disappearance.
Abdelmoumni learned in 2019 that his phone was infected with Pegasus spyware developed and sold by the Israel-based company NSO Group. The software gains complete access to a phone's camera, microphone, voice calls, media, email, text messages, and other functions, enabling extensive surveillance of the targeted person and their contacts. Investigations by Amnesty International and Forbidden Stories found that Moroccan authorities were behind the hacking of the smartphones of several journalists and rights defenders, alongside possibly thousands of other individuals, using Pegasus, between 2019 and 2021.
In December 2020, Abdelmoumni and other spyware victims lodged an investigation request with the Moroccan National Commission for the Control of Personal Data Protection. The commission did not act on the complaint, contending that it "had no jurisdiction over those types of matters," he said. Moroccan authorities have repeatedly denied using Pegasus to spy on dissidents.
In 2020, an anonymous WhatsApp account sent six videos to a few dozen people, including friends, activists, and close relatives, of Abdelmoumni and his partner, showing them in intimate situations before they were married. Abdelmoumni believes cameras were secretly planted inside his apartment.
Morocco's criminal code punishes consensual sexual relationships between unmarried adults with up to one year in prison. Publicizing such relationships can expose women in particular to lasting stigma. Abdelmoumni said circulation of the videos prompted him to temporarily adopt a lower public profile to protect his partner and his security and privacy.
But after he resumed criticizing the authorities, Chouf TV in October 2020 publicly named Abdelmoumni's partner, outing and shaming her.
In recent years, Moroccan authorities have stepped up repressive tactics against dozens of journalists and social media activists, convicting them for libel; publishing "false news," "insulting" or "defaming" local officials, state bodies, or foreign heads of state; and "undermining" state security or the institution of the monarchy.
In a major escalation, the National Brigade of the Judicial Police of Casablanca on March 1, 2025, arrested four family members of Canada-based Moroccan content creator Hicham Jerando, seemingly in retaliation for his outspoken YouTube videos denouncing alleged corruption by public figures and senior Moroccan officials. The four, Jerando's sister, her husband, his nephew, and his 13-year-old niece, are awaiting trial for alleged complicity in "disseminating false facts after invading the privacy of people" and for their alleged participation in threats.
Ismail Lghazaoui, an activist, was summoned for questioning in November 2024 over calls to protest Morocco's facilitation of US weapons transfers to Israel and was charged with incitement to commit offenses. A Casablanca court sentenced him to one year in prison and a fine of 5,000 dirhams (about $520) on December 10. On February 5, 2025, the Casablanca Court of Appeals reduced the prison sentence to four months, including two months suspended, and ordered his release.
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The Rabat Court of First Instance on November 11, 2024, sentenced Hamid Elmahdaoui, editor-in-chief of the website Badil and a frequent government critic, to 18 months in prison and a fine of 1.5 million Dirhams (about $156,600) for allegedly "broadcasting and distributing false allegations and facts in order to defame people, slander, and public insult," after he mentioned a minister in a video. He had been previously sentenced to multiple prison terms for peaceful speech.
Morocco's parliament should repeal all provisions criminalizing nonviolent speech offenses, including insults to public officials and state institutions, which can be punished with prison terms under the Penal Code.
Morocco's constitution guarantees the protection of private life as well as thought, opinion, and expression. Morocco is also a party to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which guarantees the rights to freedom of expression and to privacy.
"The Moroccan monarchy's effort to present itself as progressive stands in stark contrast to the country's repressive security forces," Jarrah said. "The only way to align these outlooks is to end repression of critics and ensure people can express their peaceful views."
