Amnesty International (AI) has called on the Moroccan authorities to end cruelty against journalists and academics.

Development Diaries reports that at least four journalists and one academic have been denied the right to read and write in Moroccan prisons.

According to the United Nations Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners, also known as the Mandela rules, prisoners should be allowed to read and work, to regularly have access to newspapers or the radio and access to a library.

Prisoners in pre-trial detention should also be able to buy books, newspapers and writing materials.

AI’s interim Deputy Director for the Middle East and North Africa, Rawya Rageh, said in a statement that the Moroccan authorities have long targeted dissenting writers and journalists with arrest.

He said the press freedom day is a day to remember all those imprisoned for their writing, adding that to deprive imprisoned journalists of pens and paper is punitive, unnecessary and a deliberate attack on their freedom of expression.

‘This World Press Freedom Day, we call on the Moroccan authorities to end this cruelty against journalists and academics’, he said.

‘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’.

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) ranks Morocco 144 out of 180 in its 2023 press freedom index.

According to RSF, the Moroccan authorities put pressure on the media to ensure they do as they are told, and independent journalists are subjected to constant harassment.

It also noted that journalists in the North African nation are often subjected to arrest without warrant and prolonged pre-trial detention.

Development Diaries calls on the Moroccan authorities to take practical steps to end rights abuses and harassment against journalists.

Photo source: DW