{"id":1616,"date":"2014-07-07T08:51:20","date_gmt":"2014-07-07T08:51:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/freedimensional.org\/?p=1616"},"modified":"2014-07-07T08:51:20","modified_gmt":"2014-07-07T08:51:20","slug":"letter-to-moroccan-minister-of-justice-re-musician-mouad-belghouate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fd.artistsafety.net\/2014\/07\/letter-to-moroccan-minister-of-justice-re-musician-mouad-belghouate\/","title":{"rendered":"Letter to Moroccan Minister of Justice re: musician Mouad Belghouate"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"color: #4787ff;\"><b style=\"color: #000000;\">Open Letter to the Moroccan Minister of Justice and Liberties El Mustapha Ramid on the Four-month Sentence Against Musician Mouad Belghouate (aka El Haqed)<\/b><br style=\"color: #000000;\" \/><br style=\"color: #000000;\" \/><span style=\"color: #ff0000;\">7 July 2014<\/span><br style=\"color: #000000;\" \/><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Mr El Mustapha Ramid<\/span><br style=\"color: #000000;\" \/><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Minister of Justice and Liberties<\/span><br style=\"color: #000000;\" \/><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Minist\u00e8re de la Justice et des libert\u00e9s Place El Mamounia \u2013 BP 1015<\/span><br style=\"color: #000000;\" \/><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Rabat<\/span><br style=\"color: #000000;\" \/><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Morocco<\/span><br style=\"color: #000000;\" \/><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Fax:+212 537 73 47 25<\/span><br style=\"color: #000000;\" \/><br \/>\n<span style=\"color: #000000;\">We the undersigned organisations committed to the defence of the rights to freedom of expression, culture and the arts, condemn the four-month sentence served against musician Mouad Belghouate (aka El Haqed) following a trial that fell short of international standards. We are concerned that the sentence has been given in retribution for his involvement in Morocco\u2019s pro-democracy movement, and specifically his condemnation of corruption and police violence through his music.<\/span><br style=\"color: #000000;\" \/><br style=\"color: #000000;\" \/><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Convicted of assaulting police officers during an incident in Casablanca on 18 May 2014, evidence including testimonies of witnesses to the incident were not accepted by the court. This led defence lawyers to withdraw from the proceedings calling them \u201cunjust\u201d and \u201cunfair\u201d.<\/span><br style=\"color: #000000;\" \/><br style=\"color: #000000;\" \/><span style=\"color: #000000;\">This is the third incident since 2011 where Belghouate has been imprisoned following trials that have been condemned as highly flawed. Notably in May 2012 he was imprisoned for 12 months for insulting police in a song and its accompanying video, a charge that clearly violated his rights to freedom of expression.<\/span><br style=\"color: #000000;\" \/><br style=\"color: #000000;\" \/><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Belghouate has been closely engaged with the 20th February democracy movement, and he has been openly critical of corruption in Morocco and accused police of brutality in his lyrics, leading to concerns that these are the source of the accusations against him, concerns that are heightened by trial irregularities.<\/span><br style=\"color: #000000;\" \/><br style=\"color: #000000;\" \/><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Morocco has ratified the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights which includes the rights to freedom of expression and fair trial. We therefore call on the Moroccan authorities to immediately release Mouad Belghouate and to ensure that any appeal be carried out fairly and include all evidence and witnesses relevant to the case.<\/span><br style=\"color: #000000;\" \/><br style=\"color: #000000;\" \/><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Yours sincerely,<\/span><br style=\"color: #000000;\" \/><br style=\"color: #000000;\" \/><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Arterial Network<\/span><br style=\"color: #000000;\" \/><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Article 19<\/span><br style=\"color: #000000;\" \/><span style=\"color: #000000;\">European Council of Artists<\/span><br style=\"color: #000000;\" \/><span style=\"color: #000000;\">freeDimensional<\/span><br style=\"color: #000000;\" \/><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Freemuse<\/span><br style=\"color: #000000;\" \/><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Index on Censorship<\/span><br style=\"color: #000000;\" \/><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Institute for Freedom of Expression, Turkey<\/span><br style=\"color: #000000;\" \/><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Observatoire de la libert\u00e9 de creation, France<\/span><br style=\"color: #000000;\" \/><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Vivarta<\/span><br style=\"color: #000000;\" \/><br style=\"color: #000000;\" \/><br style=\"color: #000000;\" \/><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Copies to:<\/span><br style=\"color: #000000;\" \/><span style=\"color: #000000;\">President of National Human Rights Council Mr. Driss El Yazmi<\/span><br style=\"color: #000000;\" \/><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Minister of Culture, Mr Mohamed Amine Sbihi\u00a0<\/span><br style=\"color: #000000;\" \/><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Association Marocaine des Droits Humains (AMDH), Mr. Ahmed El Haij (President)\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<iframe id=\"basic_facebook_social_plugins_likebutton\" src=\"http:\/\/www.facebook.com\/plugins\/like.php?href=https%3A%2F%2Ffd.artistsafety.net%2F2014%2F07%2Fletter-to-moroccan-minister-of-justice-re-musician-mouad-belghouate%2F&amp;layout=standard&amp;show_faces=false&amp;width=&amp;action=recommend&amp;font=arial&amp;colorscheme=light\" scrolling=\"no\" frameborder=\"0\" allowTransparency=\"true\" style=\"border:none; overflow:hidden; width:px; height:25px\"><\/iframe><!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on the_content --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on the_content -->","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Open Letter to the Moroccan Minister of Justice and Liberties El Mustapha Ramid on the Four-month Sentence Against Musician Mouad Belghouate (aka El Haqed)7 July 2014Mr El Mustapha RamidMinister of Justice and LibertiesMinist\u00e8re de la Justice et des libert\u00e9s Place El Mamounia \u2013 BP 1015RabatMoroccoFax:+212 537 73 47 25 We the undersigned organisations committed to [&hellip;]<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,5,196],"tags":[129,357,354,355,356],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fd.artistsafety.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1616"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fd.artistsafety.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fd.artistsafety.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fd.artistsafety.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fd.artistsafety.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1616"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/fd.artistsafety.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1616\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fd.artistsafety.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1616"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fd.artistsafety.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1616"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fd.artistsafety.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1616"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}