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| Africa North |
| Moroccan journalists fined for insulting Islam |
| 2007-01-16 |
| Two Moroccan journalists were convicted and fined Monday for insulting Islam after their magazine published jokes about the religion, court officials said. The court gave three-year suspended sentences to Driss Ksikes, editor of Nichane, and to journalist Sanaa al-Aji, court officials said. Both were barred from any journalistic activity for two months and their weekly, independent Arab-language magazine was suspended for two months. They were each fined about $9,300. The sentence was milder than the three to five years in prison that prosecutors had requested. Ksikes has repeatedly said the 10-page article was meant as a thoughtful examination of Moroccan popular humor. "I don't regret what I wrote," Ksikes told reporters after the verdict, though he also said that he was sorry to have offended some Moroccans. Prime Minister Driss Jettou ordered Nichane banned on Dec. 20 in response to complaints about the article that were posted on an Islamist Web site and issued by the Kuwaiti government. Ksikes and al-Aji were then tried for insulting Islam, a crime in Morocco. Morocco's National Press Union condemned the trial. The trial and a government-supported libel suit against another magazine, Le Journal Hebdomadaire, have led to concerns that the North African kingdom may be backsliding on moves in recent years to relax long-standing restrictions on the media. Aboubakr Jamai, editor of Le Journal Hebdomadaire, called the court ruling "a setback for freedom of expression," adding, "they shouldn't have been prosecuted in the first place." Paris-based media freedom group Reporters Without Borders has claimed the government was seeking to burnish its Islamic credentials before parliamentary elections this year that the Islamist opposition Justice and Development Party is expected to win. |
| Posted by:ryuge |
| #2 You mean you can't say allan is a demon, mohamhead is a murdering pedophile, and islam is death cult? |
| Posted by: anymouse 2007-01-16 17:27 |
| #1 Aboubakr Jamai, editor of Le Journal Hebdomadaire, called the court ruling "a setback for freedom of expression," adding, "they shouldn't have been prosecuted in the first place." In fact it is a victory for freedopm of expression. For insulting islma the standard procedure would have been jail sentnces or worse. |
| Posted by: JFM 2007-01-16 07:41 |