A prominent Moroccan intellectual in prison starts a hunger strike

Maati Monyib, during his hunger strike in Rabat in 2015, in which he denounced being harassed by the State.

The Moroccan dissident intellectual Maati Monyib, imprisoned since December 29 and highly critical of the regime in his country, has started a hunger strike since Thursday in the El Arjat 2 prison, in the municipality of Salé, near Rabat.

His objective is to launch a "call for help" to public opinion in the face of "the persecution and injustice" to which he says he feels subjected by the Moroccan state, according to a letter issued by his lawyer.

The 60-year-old human rights activist is in pretrial detention accused of having laundered money.

Last January, while he awaited the trial for these accusations, a court of first instance sentenced him to one year in prison, for “fraud and an attack against the security of the State”, in relation to another trial that dated from 2015. This last matter , for which six other journalists and human rights activists, now living abroad, were convicted, originated in a project funded by the Dutch NGO Free Press Unlimited to encourage the use of the Story Maker phone app.

The application allows you to exercise the so-called citizen journalism anonymously.

Monyib states in his letter that neither he nor his lawyer were summoned to the hearing in which he was sentenced to one year in prison.

He assures that this trial had been "systematically postponed" until his imprisonment took place and that both he and his family suffered "defamation" by "media dependent on security organs."

The historian concludes his writing by affirming his innocence in the face of accusations that, according to him, try to destroy his credibility as a journalist and writer.

The reason for the "persecution", according to Monyib, is his publications critical of the regime and his support for the prisoners of the Rif Hirak movement and for "journalists unjustly detained under the cover of common law crimes."

The journalist and human rights activist, Omar Radi, also very critical, was jailed on July 30, accused of rape and committing a crime against state security.

Another dissident intellectual, the star columnist and editor-in-chief of the Moroccan daily

Ajbar al Yaum

, Suleiman Raisuni, has also been in pre-trial detention since May 22.

He is accused of "indecent assault through violence and kidnapping" against the activist of the LGTB community Adam Mohamed.

Similarly, the director of

Ajbar al Yaum

, Taoufik Buachrín, has been in prison since 2018, convicted of various charges of a sexual nature.

• A Moroccan journalist critical of the authorities imprisoned on various charges

Journalist Hajar Raisuni, 30, the niece of columnist Suleiman Raisuni, was sentenced in 2018 to one year in prison after being accused of undergoing an abortion and having relationships outside of marriage.

King Mohamed VI pardoned her when she had served a month and a half in jail and after her case had been publicized in the international media.

Monyib already started a hunger strike in 2015 in which he denounced feeling harassed by the regime.

At that time, in the midst of a strike, he declared to this newspaper: “I am not doing the strike just to be able to travel abroad, but so that the State will stop harassing me.

They have been criticizing me in all the related media for more than a year.

And now, when I left the association to go see my daughter, I had someone watching me.

The government would be delighted if I went into exile, but I am not going to do it. "

On this occasion, several friends of Monyib maintain that his life is in danger because the historian suffers from diabetes and is in poor health.

The activist Fuad Abdelmumni, 62, a member of the NGO Transparency Maroc –who also claims to suffer a smear campaign with sexual blackmail included– told this newspaper last February: “Monyib is a man whose integrity is a thousand times superior to the the best representative of this regime.

Putting him in jail accusing him of money laundering is intolerable ”.