Rabat – A Moroccan appeals court halved the sentence of rights activist Rida Benotmane, jailed for social media posts calling for rallies against “abuses by security forces”, his lawyer said on Tuesday.
“The sentence has been reduced to a year and a half in prison,” said lawyer Mohammed Ennouini, who demanded Benotmane be acquitted.
Benotmane was arrested last September over Facebook and YouTube posts made in 2021, where he called for a “march against abuses by security forces”, according to Amnesty International.
In November, a court in the North African country’s capital Rabat sentenced him to three years in prison, including for “insulting public officials in the exercise of their functions”.
Benotmane, born in 1976, argued in court that the comments “fall within the scope of freedom of expression and do not constitute an offence”.
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Amnesty and the Moroccan Association for Human Rights (AMDH), of which he is a member, have demanded his immediate release.
Several Moroccan activists have recently been sentenced for online comments critical of the authorities.
Yassine Benchekroune was sentenced earlier in February to two years in prison for “insulting a constituted body and a constitutional institution”, according to local media.
Saida El Alami, another activist, was also handed a three-year prison term for online comments causing “contempt of constitutional institutions” in September.
Fatima Karim was in September also jailed for two years “undermining Islam” after having made satirical posts about the Koran on Facebook.
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Source: AFP
Picture: Twitter/@AHamamouchi
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