Moroccan bloggers react to Nichane verdict

17/01/2007

Some Moroccan bloggers thought the verdict in the Nichane case was too light, while others viewed it as an attack on freedom of expression.

[Getty Images] Nichane editor Driss Ksikes (left) and journalist Sanaa al-Aji (right) listen to their lawyer Chawki Benyoub on Monday (January 15th) in Casablanca.

The verdict in the Nichane case has polarized the Moroccan blogosphere.

"Nichane editor Driss Ksikes and journalist Sanaa Al-Aji were each handed a three year suspended sentence … for having published an article considered 'defamation to Islam' … the magazine was banned for two months" blogged The Morocco Report , expressing relief that neither will be facing a prison sentence.

For some, the sentence was not at the level of the offence, thought Saloua. The blogger was expecting "more than five years of prison". The jokes Sanaa Al-aji used in report "are an offence not only to our religion but to our society as well", added the blogger.

Partageons nos passions, argued that "there are red lines that should not be transgressed in Morocco -- religion, the monarchy and the integrity of the territory. In France and other European countries it is Jewish history at the beginning of the last century. In the United States; it is Islamist terrorism after communism."

"Journalists are public figures and should not … fall into the trap of the ordinary and the sensational … [They] do not insult people: from the king to the ordinary citizen in the name of freedom of expression," added the blogger.

The article's strategic mistake was "reporting jokes of a personal nature to the outside by publishing them … how many times have we read about depiction of Arab rulers in the popular culture through adages, but the new here is calling people by their names, and that puts it under liable defamation," explained Marabid Alkheer.

"One can see that in these affairs are the return of the era of the big stick, and this is going to hurt badly. Even more so for those of us who might have believed for an instant that Morocco is a democracy," bemoaned Larbi

This is all "a political calculation by the Moroccan State … [To] steal the fire from Islamic conservatives in advance of this year's legislative elections," argued Eatbees blog.

In a post entitled "Moroccan writers back Nichane over 'jokes'," The View From Fes joined "Twenty-five of Morocco's leading Moroccan writers … [in] condemning the 'banning of humour' after the government cracked down on Nichane for publishing jokes about politics, religion and sex…A society which doesn't laugh at itself is a society condemned to all forms of bigotry and the creep of extremism," said the blogger.

"This is really going very far," blogged Najlae asking everybody to stop their feverish attacks now that the "lesson has been learned".

Atmani Miloud hoped that this experience won't stop Sanaa Al-Aji and Driss Ksikes and all freedom advocates from giving more. "They're young and have their future before them" he wrote, adding that "we should not confiscate their future" in a country in dire need for freedom".