And rebel! the European Parliament returns to the charge against Morocco. One might think that new elements have surfaced, that a major event has occurred, to justify a “debate” and the vote of a “resolution” in the European Parliament concerning the Kingdom.
But it is nothing! It’s warmed up that the EP serves us again to concoct a new episode of a masquerade which we are now used to.
On heated and largely fantasized narratives, emanating from hostile and revengeful circles, the EP votes, this Thursday, a resolution on the so-called “situation of journalists in Morocco”, but which is in fact only a display where all the extremists and marginals came to spit their venom and pour out their hysterical diatribes.
This vote, which comes at a time when serious accusations of corruption are hanging over a large number of MEPs, is just one act (one more!) of a campaign of harassment and relentlessness, which is certainly not not new, but which has just crossed an unprecedented threshold with this resolution, because it is an entire institution — the European Parliament — which finds itself held hostage, in the absence of the majority of its Members.
The EP is led by its own blind extremes, on side roads, to the detriment of its own interests and values.
But let’s be reassured, it is not the exacerbation of pressures that will make Morocco deviate from its path. Morocco remains confident in its national processes and serene in its internal and foreign policy choices. Morocco will not be intimidated or distracted.
Indeed, these maneuvers which believed to intimidate a State, only consolidate its national unity – authorities, living forces and civil society – around its development model and its political choices.
However, what remains deplorable, it must be stressed, is that an institution which claims to be democratic voluntarily exerts pressure on a sovereign State and knowingly harasses its judicial system, by interfering in its procedures and in dictating its guidelines.
In doing so, the EU executive is exposing its inconsistency to the European Parliament, because at a time when the successful Morocco/EU partnership is developing and acting as a locomotive at the level of Europe’s southern neighborhood, the EU executive is failing to defend it before the EP and allows itself to be drawn into an incoherent discourse.
Case Omar Radi
This famous “resolution” unduly focuses on the case of journalist Omar Radi, in a cynical approach that completely anonymizes the rights of his victim, Mrs. Hafsa Boutahar.
In this regard, it is appropriate to recall certain elements that the members of the EP are unaware of, or have knowingly chosen to conceal.
Omar Radi is a journalist who has worked for many years completely freely without ever having been worried or questioned in any way whatsoever in the context of his work or his activities.
Moreover, the person concerned has never complained of any infringement or restriction in this regard, either to the competent judicial authorities or to the competent national institutions.
He was arrested, prosecuted and sentenced to 6 years in prison for rape and espionage, acts of common law criminalized by the Moroccan Penal Code, which have no connection with his status as a journalist, nor in general with his right to freedom of expression and opinion.
And in any case, the status of journalist cannot, in itself, exonerate him from his criminal liability.
His conviction was pronounced after a fair trial during which all the rights of the defense were guaranteed, in accordance with the relevant provisions of the International Covenant on civil and political rights.
The legal proceedings initiated against Omar Radi have no connection either with his status as a journalist or even more generally with the right to freedom of expression as guaranteed by the Moroccan Constitution and the international instruments to which Morocco subscribed.
On good terms…