Ali Anouzla

Ali Anouzla (; born ) is a Moroccan journalist, known for his critical articles of King Mohammed VI's rule. Since December 2010 he has been the editor-in-chief of the online media platform Lakome, which he co-founded along with Aboubakr Jamaï. Lakome was most notably behind the uncovering of the Daniel Galván scandal in which Mohammed VI was found to have pardoned, as a gesture "demonstrating good relations between him and King Juan Carlos I of Spain" a Spanish serial child rapist sentenced to 30 years in Morocco of which he spent only a year and a half. The scandal led to unprecedented spontaneous demonstrations against the Moroccan monarch in early August 2013. On 17 September 2013, Ali Anouzla was arrested in a raid against his home in Rabat, officially for having linked to an El País article which contained a video allegedly posted by AQIM and hosted on the website of the Spanish newspaper. He was later charged with "Knowingly providing material assistance to terrorists acts". Many observers saw this as a revenge for the Daniel Scandal episode.

Background Ali Anouzla was born in Agadir into a Sahrawi family originally from Guelmim. His father was a member of the Moroccan Army of Liberation which operated in the south of the country to oust the Spanish from the region. Ali founded -along with renowned journalist Taoufik Bouachrine- his first newspaper al-Jarid al-Oukhra in 2004 which was issued weekly. The media opened its columns to many dissidents and broke-ground in Morocco's journalistic scene by publishing a poll about the personality of the year in 2005 (won by human-rights activist Driss Benzekri) in addition to publishing details about Salma Bennani, the wife of Mohammed VI. In 2006, al-Jarid Al-Oukhra was shut down and Anouzla joined Rachid Niny and Taoufik Bouachrine and a host of other Moroccan Journalists, to found al-Massae, a daily which was to become a huge success. In February 2008, he quit al-Massae and founded al-Jarida al-Oula on 19 May 2008.

He faced systematic campaigns aimed at discrediting him in the eyes of the Moroccan public opinion. The news first published exclusively on Lakome (in addition to ) and discussed exclusively on social media platforms while being censored elsewhere, sparked an unprecedented wave of angry protests. They were, for the first time, directed against Mohammed VI. As the pressure of the public opinion was mounting, the monarch later retracted the pardon but only after the convicted child sex offender left prison and went to Spain with an expired passport. It discussed the rather onerous budget of Morocco's palace, pointing out that it was many times superior to that of richer countries, such as Britain, France and Spain.

In an editorial published in June 2013 on Lakome, he wrote about Mohammed VI's habit of taking long vacations. Between 10 May and late June 2013, the monarch has been away on an unannounced private vacation in his 71ha palace in Betz, France. Among the licenses beneficiaries figured some companies based in tax havens such as the Virgin Islands and Luxembourg. Lakome demonstrated that Mounir Majidi (a close friend and personal secretary of Mohammed VI of whom he manages his financial holdings) had links to these companies through a complex net of FVCs. The licensees often reported deficient financial statements, which prompted Morocco's minister of Public Works Aziz Rabbah to state that "Morocco tax losses in the sector amounted to 3 billion Dirhams per year."

Legal battles

al-Jarida al-Oula & the Moroccan Equity and Reconciliation Commission

In June 2009, Anouzla faced an unusual sentence by a Rabat court which demanded that he ceases the publication of content from the archive of Morocco's reconciliation commission (an organisation created by Mohammed VI and tasked with enquiring into alleged human-rights abuses during the years when Hassan II was in power). The court also fined Anouzla an amount of 1,000 dirhams for each day his publication missed to comply with the judgement. Anouzla responded that the archive of the commission was a property of the Moroccan people and the publication of its content is a basic right of access to information. The published content included details about the actions of prominent members of the Istiqlal party during the years immediately before and after Morocco's independence, which revealed their alleged implication in the assassination of opposing figures from the Moroccan Liberation Army and those connected to famous Moroccan resistant Muhammad Ibn 'Abd al-Karim al-Khattabi, which eventually led to an uprising in the Rif region followed by a bloody crack-down. It also contained a narrative from Khelli Henna Ould Rachid (head of the Royal council for the Saharan Affairs) in which he confessed the occurrence of war-crimes during Morocco's fight against the Polisario's Guerilla movement, as well as ill-treatment of Sahrawis by Moroccan officials before the Western Sahara conflict broke out in 1976. El Hachmi-Idrissi was later appointed by Mohammed VI, as the director-general of La MAP, Morocco's official press agency.

After publishing another article critical of Hachemi-Idrissi, which led the latter to file another complaint in court. Anouzla and his media were sentenced to a fine of $20,000 and 2 months suspended prison, for "disrespect to the magistrate" because Anouzla complained that the Judiciary was "myopic".

The article in question was written by journalist "Jamal Boudouma" after Hachemi-Idrissi published an editorial in his newspaper in which he described the al-Jarida al-Oula journalists as lacking patriotism and the ethics of journalism. Anouzla had published an editorial in al-Jarida al-Oula in which he described countries of the Maghreb region as dictatorships and that Gaddafi in particular dilapidated the wealth of his country and rules through ruthless oppression. Rachid Niny described the judgement as a farce and that it was a clear retaliation against independent journalists while using the Gaddafi suite as an excuse.

The court's decisions is based on Morocco's "code de la presse", inherited from France's 1882 code de la presse and unchanged since then, which still incriminates criticism of foreign heads-of-state.

Mohammed VI health

On 27 August 2009, after Mohammed VI had cancelled a planned trip to Casablanca and did not attend a ceremonial religious event of the Ramadan; Bouchra Dou wrote an article in al-Jarida al-Oula in which she revealed that the monarch has been allegedly under a treatment against asthma and allergy. Dou, the original author of the article, was also sentenced to 3 months suspended prison and a 10,000 Dirhams in fines. Anouzla stopped writing in the paper a few months before it shut down, as he was serving his 1-year suspended prison sentence. This was in part due to the fact that Anouzla did not have enough capital after the bankruptcy of his first magazine "al-Jarida al-Oukhra" on which he had spent all of his savings. The video was entitled "Morocco, the kingdom of corruption and despotism". The video concluded by calling on Moroccans to overthrow the rule of Mohammed VI and choose the path of "Hijra to God rather than Europe". Lakome's article contained a link to an article from Spanish journalist Ignacio Cembrero (North Africa correspondent of a leading Spanish daily) hosted on his El País-blog, which had posted the video.

Anouzla's home was raided on Tuesday 17 September 2013 on orders from Rabat's prosecutor Hassan Daki who issued this statement: “Following the publication by the online newspaper Lakome of a video attributed to Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), which includes an unequivocal and direct incitement to commit terrorist acts in the Kingdom of Morocco, the prosecutor general has given instructions to the criminal investigation police to arrest the head of the online newspaper for investigation.” stating that it was a revenge for the revelation of the Daniel scandal.

Human Rights Watch Released a statement in which it demanded the immediate release of Anouzla.

Prince Moulay Hicham of Morocco In article published on 25 September 2013 in AlifPost, he stated that the arrest of Anouzla was another "infringement on the freedom of the press".

In support of the arrest:

Mustapha Ramid, Morocco's justice minister (from the PJD) He issued a statement on 17 September 2013 in which he expressed that linking to the alleged AQIM-video constituted a threat on Morocco's citizens and national security. He added that he intended to sue El País in Spain. On 4 October 2013, he declared in a radio interview that "When a case is related to the general interest, the journalist (Ali Anouzla) should be prosecuted"

Mustapha El Khalfi Morocco's communication minister (from the PJD) On 23 September 2013, he issued a statement in which he described the content of the video as very dangerous and the publishing a link to it constituted a clear incitement to commit terrorist acts in Morocco. He added that freedom of speech does not include the right to incite on terrorism.

On 6 October 2013 during an interview on France 24.

On 7 October 2013, El Khalfi faced an angry audience at a conference he was giving in Agadir's University.

Lahcen Haddad, Morocco's minister of tourism (from the Popular Movement) Had a passionate exchange on Twitter with Spanish Journalist Ignacio Cembrero (who originally posted the AQIM video to which Anouzla linked). Haddad strongly defended the arrest of Anouzla as in the interest of the Moroccan citizens, and accused Cembrero of patronizing Morocco. Moroccan political parties The Istiqlal Party, the National Rally of Independents and the Popular movement have all released statement in which they support the arrest of Anouzla.

Younes Moujahid, president of pro-regime journalists union, the majority of which members work for Morocco's state television and official press agency, stated that freedom of the press does not include the right to incite on terrorism or publish material which may promote terrorism.

Provisional release

On Friday 25 October 2013, Ali Anouzla was released provisionally after his request to the magistrate Abdelkader Chentouf—who previously ordered his provisional imprisonment—was accepted. A few days before, Ali had signed a document submitted by his lawyer Hassan Semlali to the general prosecutor, in which he demanded the suspension of Lakome.com. Moroccan authorities proceeded to the blocking of both the Arabic and French version of the site. They later blocked any other website that mirrored Lakome,