Reporters sans frontieres calls for immediate release of editor who has completed one-year jail term
Reporters Without Borders has called for the immediate release of Anas Tadili, editor of the weekly "Akhbar al-Ousbouaâ", who should have been let out of jail on 29 September 2005 after completing a one-year sentence for libelling a government minister.
"We do not understand this unrelenting attitude towards Tadili on the part of the judicial authorities," the press freedom organisation said. Judicial and prison officials have turned a deaf ear to pleas from Tadili's family and lawyers.
Detained since 15 April 2004, Tadili is being held in especially harsh conditions. He is in a "high security" wing of Kénitra prison. He is banned from communicating with other inmates and using recreation areas. He has diabetes, high cholesterol, rheumatism and heart problems. He is also being treated for depression.
On 19 September 2004, a Rabat court sentenced him on appeal to a year in prison and a fine of 10,000 dirhams (approx. 900 euros) for reporting on 9 April that the police had caught a government minister in a homosexual act at a beach resort in northern Morocco. The report did not name the minister, but his identity was clear from the context.
Six days after the report was published, Tadili was jailed in connection with a 10-year-old case that was unrelated to his work as a journalist. A court ordered his imprisonment for debt on the grounds that he was unable to immediately pay a fine of 3 million dirhams (approx. 270,000 euros). The order was only lifted seven months later.
Tadili wrote to Reporters Without Borders on 20 September 2005 to complain about his continuing detention. Extracts of his letter are available at: http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=15487
"We do not understand this unrelenting attitude towards Tadili on the part of the judicial authorities," the press freedom organisation said. Judicial and prison officials have turned a deaf ear to pleas from Tadili's family and lawyers.
Detained since 15 April 2004, Tadili is being held in especially harsh conditions. He is in a "high security" wing of Kénitra prison. He is banned from communicating with other inmates and using recreation areas. He has diabetes, high cholesterol, rheumatism and heart problems. He is also being treated for depression.
On 19 September 2004, a Rabat court sentenced him on appeal to a year in prison and a fine of 10,000 dirhams (approx. 900 euros) for reporting on 9 April that the police had caught a government minister in a homosexual act at a beach resort in northern Morocco. The report did not name the minister, but his identity was clear from the context.
Six days after the report was published, Tadili was jailed in connection with a 10-year-old case that was unrelated to his work as a journalist. A court ordered his imprisonment for debt on the grounds that he was unable to immediately pay a fine of 3 million dirhams (approx. 270,000 euros). The order was only lifted seven months later.
Tadili wrote to Reporters Without Borders on 20 September 2005 to complain about his continuing detention. Extracts of his letter are available at: http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=15487
posted by saad at 9:51 PM
1 Comments:
poo thing,they forgot him in jail!!
it reminds me of a certain era in Morocco, when who ever enters the jail for political reasons disappears..
thaught it was gone for ever!
alas!
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