Category: all things moroccan
Associated Press writer Scheherezade Faramarzi recounts how she received cellphone calls from two inmates in Kenitra’s high-security prison. The men, Omar Maarouf and Abdelkebir Goumarra, are accused of being members of the Salafiya Jihadiya, the group that is believed to be responsible for the 2003 Casablanca attacks. (By the way, the death toll in the attacks was 44 people, not 33, as Faramarzi writes.) The two men claim they are innocent, that they were tortured, and that their trial was a sham. They are both now serving life sentences (one has been condemned to death, but in effect this is a life sentence because there have been no executions in Morocco for the last 13 years.)
In last week’s issue of Tel Quel there is a brief but interesting article about Moroccan literature of the diaspora; specifically, fiction that is being written and published in Holland, Belgium, Spain, Germany, and the US.
Sad news this morning: Moroccan playwright Abdesslam Chraibi has passed on:
He started his career in theatre as an actor and playwright in the 60s in his native city, Marrakech, with the troupe Al Wifak and then with the national groupe Al Maamoura.
He later co-founded the troupe Al Wafaa al Marrakshia with other emblematic figures of the Moroccan theatre like Abdeljabbar Lawzir and Mohammed Belkas.
As a playwright, Chraibi is known for his successful plays “Al Harraz”, “Sidi Keddour El Alami”, and “Meksour Ljanah”, which discussed issues related to the Moroccan society, traditions, and culture.
The artist also wrote scripts for television, including the outstanding serial “Inssane fil Mizane”.
He collaborated with many theatre leaders, such as Tayeb Seddiki, and worked in Casablanca’s municipal theatre.
He will be missed.
The appeals court in Rabat upheld a judgment against independent newsmagazine Le Journal Hebdo in the libel lawsuit brought against it by the Belgian think tank ESISC:
[The think tank’s] study said the United Nations should drop efforts to hold an independence referendum for Western Sahara, a mineral-rich former Spanish territory seized by Morocco in 1974. The rebel Polisario Front waged a long desert war seeking to end the annexation and gain independence.
The magazine said in December that the findings were so similar to official Morocco’s views that it raised questions about whether the study was “guided by” and possibly paid for by the Moroccan government.
The punitive damages against the weekly’s publisher, Aboubakr Jamai, and writer Fahd Iraqi were the biggest ever given journalists in Morocco, leading rights groups to question whether the courts were trying to curb media from taking independent stances on important matters.
“With this disproportionate sentence … the judges are clearly trying to silence the journal,” Reporters Without Borders said in a statement.
The group said the magazine wasn’t allowed to mount a proper defense. During the trial, the judge barred Le Journal Hebdomadaire from introducing an expert witness, prompting the magazine to withdraw from the proceedings in protest.
Read it all here And weep.
Jilali Ferhati’s Mémoire en Detention (‘Memory In Detention’) has won first prize in the African Film Festival in Rome.
The Guardian reports that a Moroccan mosque in Ceuta was burned down, one of apparently several incidents of this nature on Spanish territory:
El País newspaper yesterday listed a number of mosques and other Muslim targets that have been ransacked, burned or had copies of the Qur’an set alight by intruders.
Police said that extreme rightwingers and skinhead groups were responsible for almost all the attacks.
“They want Spain to have the same sort of violent reaction that the Netherlands had after the murder of film director Theo van Gogh,” one police expert told El País. “Little by little they are creating an atmosphere for this to grow.”
Spain’s 800,000 Muslims, many of them immigrants from neighbouring Morocco, have some 600 mosques around the country.
If you think that violence against Moroccans or their institutions are isolated occurrences in Europe, then you probably should make yourself watch this, courtesy of the Italian carabinieri.