Moroccan journalist jailed for an abortion she suggests hardly ever occurred – Tek Portal

Hajar Raissouni was also uncovered guilty of getting premarital sexual intercourse in a trial in the capital Rabat on Monday, which her supporters characterize as a politically enthusiastic attack to suppress press flexibility.
Raissouni, who is effective for the impartial Moroccan day by day Akhbar al-Youm, and her Sudanese fiancé Rifaat al-Amin have been arrested on August 31 as they remaining a doctor’s office environment in Rabat, the couple’s lawyer Abdelaziz Nouidi reported in an job interview with CNN. Amin was also sentenced to a year at the rear of bars for premarital sex.
Akhbar al-Yaoum is one particular of the several remaining newspapers crucial of the authorities left in Morocco. According to Human Legal rights View, it has been clamped down by authorities on several events due to the fact it commenced publishing in 2009.
Raissouni’s uncle, Souliman Raissouni, who is Akhbar al-Youm’s editor-in-chief, told CNN that undercover police officers questioned the pair about the healthcare cure she was getting. They accused her of obtaining experienced an abortion, a crime in Morocco, Souliman Raissouni claimed.

Her gynecologist was offered two many years in jail, while an anesthetist and professional medical assistant ended up specified suspended sentences of a year and eight months respectively, Nouidi, who is symbolizing all the defendants, stated.

Raissouni has consistently denied an abortion procedure took location, and she experienced visited the clinic to bear remedy for interior bleeding, Nouidi said. The lawyer claimed they are in the approach of pleasing Monday’s verdict.
According to the country’s penal code, abortion is only allowed “if necessary to defend the mother’s well being” and is in any other case punishable with up to two many years in prison and a high-quality. Intercourse out of wedlock is also a legal offense, punishable with up to one particular year in jail.
Raissouni’s attorney reported there was a number of irregularities bordering her arrest. Nouidi explained she was forcibly manufactured to endure a vaginal assessment that was not “under medical and worldwide requirements.”
“This apply is unacceptable, it quantities to rape and the federal government need to be held accountable for that,” Nouidi explained.
In a letter despatched from jail to Akhbar al-Youm, Raissouni claimed the law enforcement interrogated her about her do the job and her uncles Souliman and Ahmed Raissouni. Ahmed Raissouni is the former chief of 1 of Morocco’s biggest Islamic groups, the Motion for Unity and Reform.
“They questioned me why I went to my fiancé’s house, when he was traveling. I instructed them I took his pet Rika to the backyard garden. It is then that I recognized I was under surveillance,” Raissouni wrote in the letter.
The prosecution insists Raissouni experienced an abortion, citing the final results of a health care assessment in a community statement issued on September 5.
Prosecutor Abdeslam Imani also rejected accusations that the fees from her have been enthusiastic by Raissouni’s function as a journalist.
The Moroccan authorities would not reply to CNN’s ask for for remark.
‘Silence feminine journalists’

The case has drawn outrage among legal rights teams and supporters, who accuse the prosecutors of trumped up prices. Even though other folks have criticized the country’s penal code for curtailing women’s rights.
In September, hundreds of Moroccan girls and adult men signed an open letter in solidarity with Raissouni, which was posted in the French each day Le Monde.
“We, Moroccan citizens, declare that we are outlaws. We are violating rules that are unfair, obsolete, no more time vital. We had intercourse outside the house relationship. We have gone through, executed or been accomplices in an abortion,” it go through.

Ahmed Benchemsi, advocacy and communications director for Human Legal rights Watch’s Middle East and North Africa division, described the sentence on Twitter as “a blatant injustice, a flagrant violation of human legal rights, and a frontal assault on person freedoms. This is a black working day for freedom in Morocco.”
Raissouni’s uncle Souliman explained to CNN the authentic difficulty right here is “slander and defamation.”
“Enable me be very clear, I am from any repressive laws that criminalizes abortion,” he reported, incorporating that Raissouni’s circumstance was remaining compromised by “modernists” contextualizing it as an abortion debate when the actual situation below was push freedom.
“We won’t be able to convert a blind eye on the harassment of journalists, the absence of flexibility of expression, independence to uncover corruption and injustice, the ideal to freely categorical opinion, to critically query human legal rights in this nation.
“If the authorities are unable to come across a morality circumstance to silence brave and unbiased, woman journalists, they will invent a single.”

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