According to Amnesty International, Moroccan journalist Omar Radi is being tried today after nine months of illegal pretrial detention amid great concerns about the impartiality of the trial. The organization is calling on Moroccan authorities to release Omar Radi from detention, withdraw all accusations related to his journalist activities, and ensure a fair trial of all parties. “There is no reason to detain Omar Radi for the past nine months. We seek his release. Omar Radi faces years of court harassment by the authorities due to his brave journalism. And this trial is the latest attempt to silence him, “said Amnesty International, Deputy Director of Middle East and North Africa, Amnesty International.
Independent journalist Omar Radi is known for his criticism and exposure to corruption in Morocco’s human rights records. He was frequently harassed by authorities in court for journalism and activism. In March 2020, he was sentenced to four months with suspended sentence for a tweet sent the previous year to curse a judge for an unfair trial and imprisonment for Hilak ELRif activists. In June 2020, Amnesty International published a report revealing that Omarradi’s phone was attacked by NSO Group’s sophisticated spyware in a way that could only be obtained from authorities. On June 24, two days after the report was published, Omar Radi was first summoned for cross-examination by the Casablanca Criminal Investigation Bureau. He was later summoned at least eight more times and cross-examined for hours each time, initially only suspected of being foreign-funded in relation to intelligence agencies. Rape was alleged after his colleague sued Ledesk magazine that Omarradi attacked her on the night of July 12, 2020. The Casablanca lower court has studied for his journalistic work and international NGOs, and rape and sexual assault, all accusations that Omar Radi violently denied. On the same day, he was taken to Wanghua Tea Prison. Allegations of sexual violence should always be seriously and appropriately investigated. However, in recent years there have been several cases of sexual offences being brought against vocal critics of the Moroccan government, including independent journalists and activists. In 2019, a Moroccan court of appeal sentenced Taoufik Bouachrine, publisher of Akhbar elYoum, one of the country`s last opposition newspapers, to 15 years in prison for sexual assault against several women. In its opinion about this case, the United Nations` Working Group on Arbitrary Detention concluded that his trial was marred by dueprocess violations and considered that Bouachrine`s detention forms part of a ” judicial harassment attributable to nothing other than his investigative journalism.” Another prominent journalist, from the same newspaper, Akhbar el Yaoum, Hajar Raissouni, was sentenced in 2019 to one year in prison under charges of “abortion” and “having sex outside of marriage.” The defense witness in the rape case against Omar Radi, independent journalist Imed Stitou, who was present in the same flat at the time of the incident, and who has corroborated Omar Radi`s version of the facts, was later indicted as an accomplice of rape. Background Omar Radi is an investigative journalist and activist from Morocco. He is a founder and journalist at Le desk, an independent Moroccan publication. He has worked with national and international media companies such as Atlantic Radio, Le Journal Hebdomadaire, Telquel and Lakome. Omar’s work focuses on the relationship between political research and political and economic power in Morocco.