Morocco – Charges and travel ban against Samad Iach

Sep 6, 2015

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Morocco – Charges and travel ban against Samad Iach –

On 25 August 2015, human rights defender Mr Samad Iach was banned from travelling by Moroccan security forces at Mohamed V International Airport.

The human rights defender was to travel to Tunisia to attend a media and journalism training course between 26 August 2015 and 9 September 2015. This follows trumped-up charges that were brought against him on 15 August 2015.

Samad Iach is a journalist and human rights defender who is a member of the Association Marocaine pour le Journalisme d’Investigation – AMJI (Moroccan Association for Investigative Journalism). He also writes for the online newspaper Lakome 2, the editor of which is prominent human rights defender Mr Ali Anouzla.

Samad Iach was informed of the official travel ban by an officer at the airport’s passport control. He was subsequently taken into a room where he was interrogated for an hour by two airport officers.

The human rights defender had been summoned for interrogation on 15 August 2015 by the National Brigade for the Judicial Police (BNPJ) and interrogated for approximately ten hours about his work as a journalist and human rights defender. He was charged with “undermining the allegiance of citizens with respect to constitutional institutions”, “attempting to establish fitna (unrest)” and “working for foreign agendas.” He was subsequently released and was at no stage informed of a travel ban against him.

Front Line Defenders expresses its concern at the trumped-up charges and subsequent travel ban against Samad Iach, as well as the continued harassment he faces, which it believes to be solely motivated by his peaceful work in defence of human rights.

– See more at: https://frontlinedefenders.org/node/29431#sthash.g9dRKo1M.dpuf