Moroccan authorities have arrested 79-year-old Mohammed Ziane and upheld his three-year jail sentence.
Moroccan authorities have arrested the nation’s former human rights minister Mohammed Ziane after a sentence he had beforehand been given was upheld by an appeals courtroom.
The 79-year-old lawyer’s arrest on Monday fell on the identical day the appeals courtroom upheld his preliminary three-year sentence, the prosecutor’s workplace in Rabat mentioned.
Ziane is an outspoken authorities critic and in addition the founding father of the Moroccan Liberal Social gathering.
He went on trial final 12 months after he accused Morocco’s safety companies of faking a video purporting to point out him in a compromising state of affairs with a married girl in a resort room.
The video precipitated a scandal, however Ziane accused the top of the police and Morocco’s home safety forces, Abdellatif Hammouchi, of faking the footage.
Ziane’s son, lawyer Ali Reda Ziane, defended his father and mentioned that “he was transferred to el-Arjat jail (close to Rabat). He was not even notified legally and he by no means appeared” earlier than the courtroom.
“He was convicted [of] all potential and possible prices, it’s an aberration the likes of which I’ve by no means seen,” Ali Reda Ziane mentioned.
Below a criticism filed final 12 months by the Moroccan Ministry of Inside, Ziane was charged with 11 offences together with “insulting public officers and the judiciary”, “defamation”, “adultery” and “sexual harassment”, which human rights advocates have referred to as trumped-up prices.
A nationwide physique of rights activists defending prisoners of conscience mentioned in a press release on Monday that it was “extraordinarily shocked on the arbitrary arrest” of Ziane, who can also be a former head of the Bar Affiliation.
The inside ministry in January accused him of criminally “disseminating false accusations”. He was sentenced in February to 3 years in jail and fined 5,000 dirhams ($465) however was launched.
Ziane was the minister of human rights in Morocco between 1995 and 1996. The well-connected determine was additionally the federal government’s lawyer within the Nineteen Nineties.
In recent times, he has grow to be well-known for his outspoken challenges to the Moroccan safety equipment.
Earlier this month, a Moroccan courtroom sentenced human rights activist Rida Benotmane to 3 years in jail below the cost of “contempt for establishments” after he used social media to induce protests towards restrictive measures to comprise the unfold of the COVID-19 pandemic final 12 months.
Worldwide human rights organisations have mentioned that activists and campaigners in Morocco proceed to face repression and prosecution for freedom of speech-related offences.
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