He has also been prohibited from studying for a master’s degree. Omar Radi, an investigative journalist and vocal critic of the government’s human rights record, is forbidden from writing and is denied the letters that friends and family send him. Now, prison authorities permit Taoufik a pen and paper to write, but a source close to his family said that since the confiscation of his manuscript, “he has had block, out of fear that his work would be taken away again. However, when he was transferred from Ain Borja to Arjate 2 prison in May 2023, prison authorities confiscated his manuscript and notes. Initially Taoufik Bouachrine was able to keep a journal and was writing a book and studying for a PhD in law. Taoufik Bouachrine, 54, a journalist and publisher of one of Morocco’s last opposition newspapers, Akhbar el-Youm, is being held in solitary confinement while serving a 15-year sentence for sexual assault, having already completed five years. To kill an intellectual, you… isolate so that cannot communicate with other people.” They often do that with intellectuals, it is a form of torture. Mohamed’s son and lawyer told Amnesty International that prison officials had told him that they moved Mohamed from Arjate 2 to Arjate 1 prison “to put him in an isolation cell. He has been held in solitary confinement, denied access to newspapers and banned from writing to his lawyer. Mohamed Ziane, 80, a human rights lawyer, academic and former Minister for Human Rights in Morocco, was imprisoned on 21 November 2022, after the Rabat court of appeal confirmed in absentia a three-year prison sentence for 11 unrelated charges, including bogus charges of insulting public officials, as well as a charge of sexual assault. To deprive imprisoned journalists of pens and paper is punitive, unnecessary and a deliberate attack on their freedom of expression. He said that in Moroccan prisons “anything goes: from humiliation of visitors to the prohibition of simple things like a Bic pen to write with.” He added: “Anything political is forbidden” giving the example that prison officials had rejected one book because it had the word “Kabul” in the title, illustrating how arbitrary their decisions were. A family member said that all books pass through an arbitrary censoring process by the prison authorities, who only permit some books to reach Rida. Since the start of his detention, Rida Benotmane, 46, has been forbidden so much as a pen to write with. He is accused of bogus charges that stem solely from exercising his right to freedom of expression. Rida Benotmane, a writer and member of the Moroccan Association for the Defence of Human Rights (AMDH), has been held in prolonged solitary confinement in Arjate 1 prison since September 2022. ‘To kill an intellectual, you isolate them’ They must release journalists and academics who were imprisoned solely for exercising their right to freedom of expression and ensure that access to newspapers, books and writing materials for prisoners is not arbitrarily restricted.” “This World Press Freedom Day, we call on the Moroccan authorities to end this cruelty against journalists and academics.
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