Press Freedom
CPJ Updates
- Israel-Gaza war brings 2023 journalist killings to devastating high
- 2023 prison census: Jailed journalist numbers near record high; Israel imprisonments spike
- Haiti joins list of countries where killers of journalists most likely to go unpunished
- Ecuador on edge: Political paralysis and spiking crime pose new threats to press freedom
- Deadly Pattern: 20 journalists died by Israeli military fire in 22 years. No one has been held accountable.
- Fragile Progress: The struggle for press freedom in the European Union
- Fragile Progress: Part 1
- Fragile Progress: Part 2
- Fragile Progress: Part 3
Reporter Without Borders
Morocco March 6, 2006
HM King Mohamed VI
Cabinet Royal
Palais Royal
Rabat
Kingdom of Morocco
Your Majesty:
We write to protest the apparent orchestration by your government of protests against the weekly, Le Journal Hebdomadaire, for publishing a photograph of a French newspaper showing a cartoon of the Prophet Muhammad. On February 11, the newspaper published an Agence France-Presse photograph showing a reader holding the edition of the Paris daily, France Soir, which re-produced the Danish cartoons of the Prophet. The cartoons were barely visible, but to avoid controversy, Le Journal inked out the cartoon. Le Journal published the photograph as part of a 10-page chronology of the controversy that followed the publication of the drawings in Denmark ‘s Jyllands-Posten.
Even so, vehicles belonging to the Casablanca city government brought in about 100 people to protest in front of the newspaper’s offices. Municipal employees gave them placards and Moroccan flags to wave, and used megaphones to shout slogans against the paper. The state-run television stations, 2M and TVM, filmed the protests and broadcast them, and 2M accused the newspaper of “running against public opinion by taking up positions against the sacred values of our country.”
Your Majesty, this controversy has been provocative in its origins, mischievous in its exploitation and tragic in its consequences. We hope it may subside without further damage. But it would be harmful indeed if the episode served to justify suppression of the basic human right of freedom of expression. We urge you to refrain from further using the controversy as an excuse or pretext to suppress independent media in your country.
Respectfully yours,
Larry Martz
Norman A. Schorr
Co-chairmen, Freedom of the Press Committee
cc:
Driss Jettou
Prime Minister
Office of the Prime Minister
Palais Royal – Le Mechouar
Rabat
Kingdom of Morocco
Fax: (011.212.7) 76-99-95
Aziz Mekouar
Ambassador of Morocco to the U.S.A.
Embassy of the Kingdom of Morocco
1601 21st Street NW
Washington DC 20009
Fax: (202) 265-0161
Ambassador Mohamed Bennouna
Permanent Representative
Permanent Mission of the Kingdom of Morocco
to the United Nations
866 Second Avenue
New York , NY 10017
Fax: (212) 980-1512
Thomas T. Riley
U.S. Ambassador to Morocco
Embassy of the United States of America
2 Avenue Mohamed El Fassi
10 000 Rabat
Morocco
Fax: (011.212.7) 76-56-61
The Editor
Demain
Rabat
Morocco