By IPS Correspondents
RABAT, Jan 23 2002 (IPS)

A new media law currently tabled before the Moroccan parliament has been slammed by the country’s journalists who believe the proposed bill will be an additional shackle to the already stumbling press freedom in the North African monarchy.

The penal character of the bill is the major source of concern for the Moroccan journalists, as the text makes them liable to jail terms for publishing information deemed “blasphemous” to the monarchy or “jeopardising supreme interests or public order.”

The Moroccan Press Union (SNPM-independent) decries the introduction of jail sentences to a legal arsenal “supposed to govern the media in an era of increasing press freedom in the world.”

The Union vows that it “will resort to every possible means” to make the country’s deputies reconsider the penalties before the endorsement of the bill during the parliament’s spring session, due next April.

“SNPM will urge the nation’s representatives to do away with the sentences and replace them with fines,” the Union says in a release.

“Vesting a penal character on the press bill will only brake Morocco’s progress towards democracy,” adds the SNPM, led by Younes Moujahid, a member of the political bureau of the ruling Socialist Union of Popular Forces.

The law, which amends a press code dating back to 1973, provides for jail terms of one to three years for “publishing information harming the country’s sacred values,” and three to five years against those running information “blasphemous to the monarchy.”

Journalists publishing information “likely to harm public order, the army or the country’s supreme interests” risk one to five years in addition to paying fines of 1200 to 100,000 Moroccan Dirhams (120 U.S dollars to 10,000 U.S. dollars).

Younes Seghrouchni, editor at the wide-circulation weekly, Le Journal Hebdomadaire, says the bill remains vague regarding information harming public order and the country’s interests.

“Running information on the quality of water or bread, for instance, can be interpreted by the authorities as harming public order or the country’s interests,” Seghrouchni told IPS, adding “the legislators have to define such offences to avoid arbitrary sanctions.”

Ahmed Zaidi, a socialist deputy and head of the Moroccan Press Club, says “we don’t want the government to abolish all security provisions, but rather to make a distinction between freedom of speech and security issues.”.

For Hassan Nebraz, a member of the SNPM National Council, the tough penalties on journalists confirm that the authorities seek to be faithful to the security concern that had marked the outdated press code of 1973.

The 1973 code was enforced with repressive jail terms on journalists following two coup attempts against the late King Hassan II in 1971 and 1972, in a bid to muzzle the militant reporters of that time.

Right groups say the new bill, if adopted in its present form, will definitively bury hopes for press freedom in Morocco.

Censorship, professional banning and criminal prosecutions are among the acts that have eroded press freedom in Morocco in 2000 and 2001, reversing gains scored in the final two years of the reign of King Hassan II, who died in July 1999, and following the coronation of his son, King Mohammed VI.

The most salient repression acts were taken against Le Journal and Assahifa newspapers for publishing a letter alleging that Morocco’s Prime Minister, Abderrahmane Youssoufi, was involved in the 1972 plot to kill King Hassan.

The authorities also banned end of last year Demain magazine and fined its director, Ali Lamrabet, 30,000 dirhams (nearly 3000 us dollars) for publishing information on the royal family’s intention to sell the palace of skhirat in Rabat suburbs.

The palace is notorious for being the scene of the 1971 coup attempt against the late King Hassan. Student army officers, led by Colonel Mohamed Ababou, had attacked the palace, where the monarch was hosting a banquet to mark his birthday. Hundreds of guests were reported killed in the attack, while the late King had a narrow escape.

Seghrouchni lashes out at the socialist-led government for its rush to have the bill adopted before next September, when general and local elections will be held in the country.

“The Socialist party seeks to have the bill passed at any cost before the elections in a bid to regain a prestige it lost since it accepted to form a government in 1998 after more than 30 years in opposition,” he says.

The government is accused for failing to materialise a programme it defended before coming to power, including curbing joblessness and ensuring a stable economic growth.

Joblessness currently hits more than 23 percent of Morocco’s 30- million population, while economic growth remains largely dependent on rainfall. Last year, drought sent growth in the country to less than one percent.

The government argues that the new press law was devised with a prime objective to accompany Morocco’s progress towards democracy.

“The bill is part of the endeavor Morocco has embarked on towards the establishment of a state of law and of the consolidation of the values of freedom,” Culture and Communication Minister, Mohamed Achaari, says.

“The law will undoubtedly help the media play a key role in backing the emergency of a democratic regime,” adds Achaari, a former journalist and head of the Union of the Writers of Morocco.

The official regrets that media professionals are concentrating on “minor aspects” of the bill and ignore its “positive sides”. He cites, in this vein, guarantees of the freedom of printing and edition journalists’ right to access information sources without any restrictions.

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