The wife of the imprisoned Moroccan journalist, Suleiman Raissouni, revealed that he is living in “difficult conditions” as he is serving a prison sentence condemned by human rights organizations and whose trial is considered “political” motives.
Raissouni, who is famous for his editorials critical of the authorities, is serving a five-year prison sentence for “sexual assault” against a young man, in a case that has attracted widespread attention, and was considered by jurists as targeting related to his views.
Raissouni, who served as editor-in-chief of the discontinued newspaper “Akhbar Al-Youm”, was arrested in May 2020 after Al-Mothaki, an activist in the defense of gay rights, posted a Facebook post accusing him of sexually assaulting him.
Raissouni’s arrest came two years after the arrest of the same newspaper’s publisher, Taoufik Bouachrine, and he is now serving a 15-year prison sentence for “sexual assault” against eight victims. These charges he denied and considered his trial “political”.
Raissouni’s wife, Kholoud Mokhtari, told Al-Hurra that her husband is about to go on strike for four months and refuses to leave his cell, noting that the family tried to dissuade Suleiman from similar decisions.
Regarding the possibility of visiting him, Al-Mukhtari revealed that many attempts to visit him failed, and she has only been able to see him three times since he was transferred from Okasha prison to Ain al-Burga prison, after which there is no longer a way to communicate with him in any way.
Last February, the Casablanca Court of Appeal confirmed the initial sentence of five years in prison for journalist Sleiman Raissouni, who has been detained since 2020, on charges of “sexual assault” against a young man.
During the trial, Raissouni, 49, reiterated his innocence and the “contradictions” of the complainant, considering that his trial was “political”, while the latter renewed his adherence to his story.
In a post on Facebook, Raissouni’s wife revealed that she went to visit him on Friday, but he “refused to leave his cell” in protest at what he is being subjected to.
And she continued in her blog that after her return home, Raissouni called her from prison, saying, “I protest, as I have previously put my life in exchange for my fairness. My call now is with you, I protest against this psychological torture that is being practiced against me, for this reason, tear off the visiting card, and do not put your foot inside the prison at all, then pay attention to your condition and the condition of Hashem…”Then hang up.”
In her interview with Al-Hurra website, Kholoud Al-Mukhtari said that after he was transferred from Okasha prison, he did not find a number of papers he was working on and the novel project he was working on disappeared, in addition to a copy of the preliminary decision issued by the court, which remains his right to keep, as she put it. .
In addition to confiscating the papers, Al-Mukhtari says that Raissouni is also protesting against other matters, including the imposition of fatal isolation on him, and he does not go out to the recess and refuses to see the doctor.
The imprisoned journalist’s wife complained of a continuing smear campaign against him in some media outlets close to the authorities.
Last July, Raissouni was initially sentenced to five years in prison, in a trial that he missed most of its sessions due to a 122-day hunger strike to protest his arrest.
His supporters described this ruling as “retaliatory”, while the authorities stress the independence of the judiciary and the integrity of the trial procedures, stressing that the case relates to criminal charges that have nothing to do with freedom of expression.
Al-Hurra tried to contact the prison delegate in Morocco for comment, and has not received a response so far.
In a report issued in July, the international human rights organization Human Rights Watch criticized the targeting of journalists and dissidents in Morocco with “repressive techniques” by the authorities, most notably their convictions in public rights cases and defamation campaigns, which Rabat responded to as “malicious allegations” and “prejudice” against The kingdom.
The long report, issued in New York, reviewed the cases of eight journalists and opposition activists who were convicted or prosecuted in recent years in criminal cases, most of them “sexual assaults”.
The organization considered these victims of “tools used by the state to suppress its most severe opponents, and intimidate others”, in order to “silence any dissent.”
The official spokesman for the Moroccan government, Mustafa Baitas, later responded to the report, saying that “it is nothing more than a compilation of a group of allegations, which this organization created to raise against the kingdom.”
Morocco ranked 136th out of 180 countries in the 2022 World Press Freedom Index, issued by Reporters Without Borders.