Rabat, Morocco (TMT)- The Moroccan Minister of Communication, Mustapha El Khalfi lauded of critics Freedom House’s 2015 report on Morocco and labeled it as “unjust” and “unfair.”
El Khalfi said today that the report, which said that the freedom of press in Morocco is “Not Free,” is unjust as Morocco made important strides in this area, adding that “the report gave a better ranking to countries that held military trials of journalists and that witnessed various attacks on journalists than Morocco,” before stressing that the report is to some extent shallow.
It is worth reminding that Freedom House’s 2015 report painted a grim image of the freedom of press in Morocco. The report said that the independent press in Morocco “enjoys a significant degree of freedom when reporting on economic and social policies”, but stressed that the Moroccan authorities “use restrictive press laws and an array of financial and other, more subtle mechanisms to punish critical journalists, particularly those who focus on the king, his family, the status of Western Sahara, or Islam. The monarchy has instructed businesses not to buy ads in publications that have criticized the government.”
The 2015 report stated that “the state dominates the broadcast media, but people have access to foreign satellite television channels. The authorities occasionally disrupt websites and internet platforms, while bloggers and other internet users are sometimes arrested for posting content that offends the monarchy.”
Fredom House’s 2015 report stated that “the ratings for the Middle East and North Africa region were the worst in the world, followed by Eurasia. Syria, a dictatorship mired in civil war and ethnic division and facing uncontrolled terrorism, received the lowest Freedom in the World score of any country in over a decade.”
The Moroccan Times.
