By Tito Drago
MADRID, Jun 16 2003 (IPS)

International journalist rights organisations on Monday demanded the release of Moroccan colleague Ali Lmrabet, on the eve of the court’s decision on his appeal and coinciding with the 41st day of the prisoner’s hunger strike, which is now life-threatening.

Without the freedoms of expression and communication democratisation in Morocco will be impossible, said representatives of Reporters without Borders (RSF, for its French initials), the International Press Club, the Press Association Federation of Spain and the Catalonian Journalists Association.

A Moroccan court is to issue a decision Tuesday on the appeal filed by Lmrabet’s legal defence team. The journalist was sentenced for four years in prison for questioning the government of King Mohammed VI.

The broad-based mobilisation in Lmrabet’s defence aims first of all to save his life and win his release, but it also seeks to defend freedom of expression and the work of journalists worldwide, Florence Tourbet-Delof, RSF’s representative in Spain, told IPS.

On that point, RSF stresses that so far this year 18 journalists and one media assistant have died in the line of work or as a result of their opinions. Another 178 reporters, assistants and "cyber-dissidents" are in prison for the same reason.

The report for last year is no less dramatic, with 25 journalists killed in their efforts to freely inform the public, and by Dec. 31 there were 121 reporters imprisoned and nearly 400 communications media censored.

The periodicals also reproduced an interview with a pro-republic Moroccan that had originally appeared in the Spanish daily Avui.

But as a result of these publications he ended up in prison on May 21, after being sentenced that day to four years for disrespect for the king, offence against the monarchy and against the integrity of Moroccan territory, according to the court text.

The judge in the trial also closed down Lmrabet’s weeklies and imposed a fine.

The editor had already begun his hunger strike on May 6, to protest the acts of intimidation against the printing company that produced the magazines and to demand respect for the freedoms of expression and communication. Twenty days later he was taken to the hospital for emergency treatment, where he remains under police custody.

The Ali Lmrabet Support Committee declared Monday, as it presented a special edition of Demain Magazine in Barcelona, its "solidarity with all who defend freedom of expression and of information."

Such freedoms are an "indispensable condition for consolidating the transition to democracy and the state of law in Morocco," according to the Committee.

Contributing to the special edition of Demain Magazine were renowned Spanish journalists, including Luis de Olmo, Rosa Montero and Vicent Sanchís, as well as some of the most popular political cartoonists.

The Committee also stated that, "given the journalist’s determination to maintain the hunger strike to its ultimate consequences, the judicial resolution of Jun. 17 is the last chance the Moroccan authorities have to offer an alternative."

Last weekend, Moroccan doctors certified that if the editor of Demain Magazine continued the hunger strike any longer his body would suffer irreversible damage and he would be in danger of dying.

RSF secretary-general Robert Ménard, upon learning of the court decision of Jun. 5 said, "Once again we have seen a travesty of justice."

"The judicial authorities seem bent on dragging out the ordeal. What have they got to lose by releasing a man who started the sixth week of his hunger strike today and has no strength left?" wondered Ménard.

Morocco’s Prime Minister Driss Jettu seemed to give an ambiguous answer Monday in Paris when he said that it was up to the court to make its announcement, "and then we’ll see how things unfold."

Jettu, in France to meet with President Jacques Chirac, acknowledged that the host country’s prime minister, Jean-Pierre Raffarine, had brought up the case "in terms that you (journalists) know and should be able to guess."

After the court issues its decision Tuesday, "which could uphold the conviction," King Mohammed VI could sign a pardon, noted Hicham Amraui, director of the Arabic broadcast of Spain’s Radio Babel and coordinator of the Moroccan movement in defence of Lmrabet.

Although it is desirable and just that he be pardoned, that would not change the Moroccan regime, "because it continues to be a dictatorship," commented Amraui.

One more case "among so much evidence" in this respect, said the Moroccan journalist-activist, is that of Mustafa Alaui, editor of the Usbuar weekly, who was imprisoned but because of his age he is now "prisoner in a hospital" for reporting the truth.

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