The authorities responded to the COVID-19 pandemic with a new health emergency decree-law, which restricted freedoms of movement, expression and assembly, and used it to prosecute people for criticizing the government’s handling of the crisis or for breaking the emergency measures. Sahrawi human...

On 10 May, the case of prominent Moroccan human rights lawyer and ex-minister of human rights, Mohamed Ziane, opens before Rabat’s Court of Cassation. The Court of Cassation can determine that Mohamed Ziane is being held on an illegal basis, which would oblige the appeals court to reconsider its...

On 20 February, the Rabat Court of Appeal upheld the conviction against human rights defender Rida Benotmane, imposed by a lower court on 7 November 2022, on charges relating to his social media posts and YouTube videos dating from 2021, in which he criticised the Moroccan government. On appeal,...

On 14 January 2023, Moroccan security officers detained Saudi citizen, Hassan Al Rabea, at Marrakesh airport at the request of Saudi Arabia who has charged him with terrorism- related crimes. He remains in detention in Rabat, the capital, and is at risk of forcible return to Saudi Arabia, where he...

On 21 November 2022, security agents arrested and imprisoned prominent human rights lawyer Mohamed Ziane, around one hour after the Rabat court of appeal confirmed his sentencing of three years in prison in absentia. The 11 charges against him are unrelated and include bogus charges of insulting...

On 9 September, the Casablanca judicial police questioned Rida Benotmane, a member of the Moroccan Association for the defense of human rights (Association Marocaine des Droits Humains) about several social media posts and YouTube videos he released in 2021, in which he denounced the authorities...

On 15 August 2022, Moroccan blogger and activist Fatima Karim was sentenced to two years in prison and a fine for Facebook posts in which she made satirical comments about a Qur’anic verse, that the authorities deemed insulting to Islam. She has been held in solitary confinement since her arrest on...

Sahrawi woman activist Sultana Khaya managed to leave her house in Boujdour, Western Sahara, on 30 May and travel to Spain for medical care. Under arbitrary house arrest since November 2020, the restrictions placed on her have yet to be officially removed and it remains unclear whether she would be...

On 15, 17, 18 and 21 March, five prison guards entered the cell of Sahrawi activist Mohamed Lamine Haddi, beat him with batons and cut his beard against his will. This came after he declared his intention to go on hunger strike to protest his prison conditions and denial of medical attention....

Sultana Khaya, an activist for Sahrawis’ right to self-determination and her family have been under a de facto house arrest since November 2020. Security forces surrounding their home repeatedly and violently forced Sultana Khaya and her sister Luaara back inside their house when they attempt...

Idris Hasan, an ethnic Uyghur living in Turkey, was arrested in July 2021 in Morocco on the basis of an Interpol red notice, which has since been cancelled. The Chinese government reportedly considers him a “terrorist”, which Chinese law defines in an overly broad and vague manner, because of the...

On 19 July 2021, the Casablanca Court of First Instance convicted Moroccan journalist, Omar Radi, of espionage and rape and sentenced him to six years in prison after a trial marred by blatant breaches of due process rights. His appeal trial started on 25 November 2021. Amnesty International renews...

On 15 November, Moroccan security forces broke into the house of Sultana Khaya, Sahrawi woman activist and defender of Sahrawis’ right to self-determination. They raped her and sexually abused her sisters and 80-year-old mother. This is not the first time Moroccan forces have committed acts...