The strange abusive dismissal of the Moroccan journalist from the Qatari channel Al Jazeera, Abdessamad Nasser, because of Algeria, is a serious precedent which provokes great anger in Morocco. Could it be a vile plot against Morocco? Why fire a journalist of the caliber of Abdessamad Nasser, a man who has always remained straight in his boots while a Hafid Derradji spreading fake news all day long, be protected?
Persistent questions, misunderstandings surround the dismissal of a great Moroccan journalist, headliner of the Qatari channel Al Jazeera. The journalist who joined the chain a year after its creation in 1996, was fired because he refused to follow an order from his superiors who ordered him to delete a tweet on his personal account.
It is very disturbing to see how the Qatari channel formally asked the journalist to delete a tweet related in some way to Algeria. The general manager of Al Jazeera, Qatar’s official channel, received Abdessamad Nasser in his office asking him to delete or modify a tweet in a way that does not give a bad image of Algeria, according to an investigation conducted by the National Syndicate of the Moroccan Press (SNPM).
The journalist who refused to allow his boss to interfere in what he publishes on his account was threatened with administrative action, the same investigation revealed. Note that the Moroccan journalist defended the honor of his country and Moroccan women in his tweet after insults in the Algerian media.
It is legitimate to wonder thus, what is the interest of the Qatari channel behind this furious madness of wanting absolutely to delete any mention of Algeria and to camouflage its wrongs and not to want the journalist to defend Morocco.
This dismissal of the journalist following this tweet is a very reprehensible act for many considerations. Going so far as to dismiss an emeritus journalist for something that has nothing to do either directly or indirectly with professional misconduct in order, it seems, to hide the miseries and anti-Moroccan practices of Algeria, is very questionable when you know that the channel is Qatari and not Algerian.
Very worrying to see that the management of the Al Jazeera channel does not care about the honor of Morocco and Moroccan women and that it prefers to save the executioner instead of supporting the “victim”. Several probabilities can explain this bias and all point to a relationship between Qatar and Algeria and a hostile position towards Morocco.
The management of the chain did not hesitate to dismiss one of its journalists just because he was defending his country his country against the repeated attacks of Algeria.
However, no action has been taken against Hafid Derradji, the Algerian journalist and commentator, known for his hostile, hateful and insulting positions towards Morocco.
Just look at the number of tweets, Facebook posts, and messages in which the Algerian has expressed hatred against the Kingdom, shared easily verifiable false information, wrongly accused international institutions of conspiracy , not to mention his bad relations with his Moroccan colleagues to see that Hafid Derradji is the one to be fired for professional misconduct.
“It has never been established that this journalist exceeded the limits of propriety even in the extreme cases where certain employees of the Qatari channel and its branches, specializing in sports, insulted, in the worst possible way, the Moroccan people, its men, its women and its institutions (including the royal institution) as well as its sacred territorial integrity”, thundered the national association of media and publishers (ANME).
The ANME indicated that it was ready with all its components to use all national and international legal channels to contest the dismissal of the Moroccan journalist from Al Jazeera.
A meeting should also be held about this unfair dismissal and to denounce the low blows hatched against Morocco and its interests by targeting journalists in the Kingdom.
If the management of the media accepts that the “journalist” Hafid Derradji can behave like this, share “fake news”, attack Morocco, manipulate the facts, without this having any consequences for him or questioning the channel’s credibility would simply mean that Al Jazeera is adopting an anti-Morocco line and wants to harm it.