CASABLANCA - Morocco has seen "a real degradation of the freedom of the press," the secretary general of Reporters sans Frontieres (RSF - Reporters without Borders) Jean-Francois Julliard said Tuesday.
"In our view, there is a real hard line, a real degradation of the freedom of the press in Morocco," Julliard told an impromptu press conference in a Casablanca hotel, adding that he would contact US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who is due to visit the North African kingdom next week.
"We recently published our world ratings of press freedom and Morocco took 127th place out of 175, which is better than neighbouring countries, but that puts Morocco in a position that isn't worthy of a democratic state."
Julliard said he was in Morocco to "express the solidarity (of RSF) with the Moroccan press, the Moroccan media, and Moroccan journalists," including those who been jailed in recent months.
"We thought we'd seen the last of journalists in prison in Morocco. Clearly, that's not the case and the list of those who have been put into prison is beginning to get long."
The secretary general announced that RSF was "officially going to contact Hillary Clinton, who is coming to Morocco next week, so that she can raise this question of the freedom of the press, so that she can speak of the difficulties and the lack of pluralism in news today in Morocco."
Julliard said he hoped that Clinton "will do what she has done on other occasions, that she will get the message across to Moroccan authorities."
Several jail sentences and fines have been passed in recent weeks against journalists in Morocco, and media have been seized, including foreign papers banned from distribution.
A court Monday sentenced two journalists to suspended jail terms and fines for falsely reporting that King Mohammed VI was sick, during a time the royal palace had announced a period of convalescence.
The editor of the daily Al Jarida Al Oula, Ali Anouzla, was handed a one-year suspended jail term, while journalist Bouchra Eddou was given a suspended sentence of three months. Both men were fined.
On October 15, the managing editor of the Arabic weekly Al Michaal, Idriss Chahtane, was sentenced to a year in jail, also for publishing disputed articles about the health of the king.
Chahtane has since been locked up in the Rabat-Sale prison.
Rachid Mhamid and Mustapha Hirane, two journalists from the same weekly, were each sentenced to three months in prison, but they are provisionally free pending their appeal.
Julliard said that he had asked for talks with Communication Minister Khalid Naciri, but the minister had declined.
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