“Raissouni informed us today that he had stopped his hunger strike on Saturday after his hospitalization, in response to calls from his supporters at the national and international level,” his lawyer Mohamed Messaoudi told the press.
The doctor who is doing his follow-up in prison “informed him that his health is in danger and that he had only two choices: stop the hunger strike or die”, reported the lawyer quoting the journalist.
Soulaimane Raissouni, 49, in detention since 2020, recently demanded to be hospitalized to end his hunger strike, while the prison administration assured that he “refused to go to the hospital”.
In early July, the journalist was sentenced to five years in prison for “sexual assault”, following a complaint by an LGBT activist. Facts that he disputes, assuring that he is being prosecuted “because of his opinions”.
Raissouni refutes any desire for blackmail
The columnist of the late daily Akhbar Al Yaoum refused to eat for more than three months to protest against a “great injustice”, the prosecution, he claims that he benefited from a “fair” trial.
“I never tried to blackmail anyone to free me (…) I only demanded a fair trial which would inevitably exonerate me,” Soulaimane Raissouni told his defense on Monday.
Several national and international NGOs, personalities and Moroccan political parties had called for his release. The Moroccan authorities, for their part, insist on the independence of the judiciary and the conformity of procedures.
The General Delegate for the Penitentiary Administration and Reintegration, Mohamed Salah Tamek castigated, in a light published last Wednesday, the “faustian bargain” of the prisoner Soulaimane Raissouni and his supporters.
“A statement published by the lawyers of the detainee Soulaimane Raissouni incarcerated in the local prison of Âin Sebaâ 1 and relayed by his wife on his Facebook page and electronic information sites suggests that the person concerned would have reacted positively to calls for cessation of his alleged hunger strike and that for that he would have asked to be transported to hospital, ”said Mohamed Salah Tamek in this light relayed by electronic sites.
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