The latest ranking by Reporters Without Borders (RSF) on the situation of the press in the world, which has raised Algeria by 12 points for the past year, is “surreal”, reacted political scientist Mustapha Sehimi, who also commented on the position of the Morocco (+1).
“What is the country in the Maghreb, in the Arab world and in almost the majority of African countries apart from Senegal where there is so much freedom? I ask you the question. We are all witnesses of what is happening outside and the difficult times that Morocco has been going through for decades, but what is the situation of 2022? wondered the political scientist reacting to the report on the situation of the press in Morocco accompanying the RSF ranking.
“Morocco is ranked 136th, it would have moved up one place. You realize it! It’s extraordinary”, he said to himself ironically, continuing that of all that Morocco has garnered, capitalized on, it is only worth one place for RSF, during a press conference of the Moroccan Association. of victims’ rights, placed under the theme of flagrant violations of victims’ rights in the reports of international NGOs.
And to make a simple comparison with the situation in Algeria, whose political context has been disrupted since the coming to power of President Abdelmadjid Tebboune, who has multiplied the arrests of opponents, threatened democracy by sanctioning political parties, by imprisoning the activists of a new Hirak Algeria, including doctors, jurists, lawyers, academics and journalists.
Never has Algeria experienced so many arbitrary arrests and detentions of journalists for doing their job, deaths of prisoners of conscience, as since Abdelmadjid Tebboune in power. They are more than 300 people to be still imprisoned at present in the country, dozens of fugitives having fled the persecutions of the Algerian services for having denounced the power simply through posts on Facebook.
While Morocco has only gained one place in the ranking, it is because it “evacuates a certain number of achievements”, in particular that of the 2011 Constitution, which is an “acquis of the current democratic construction “Said Mustapha Sehimi.
The 2011 Constitution has raised justice as power and not as authority as in previous Constitutions, he said, adding that in Morocco, there is a justice that works like all the justices of the world in democratic countries. , and which is “generally satisfactory”.
“It can have a heavy hand in such and such a circumstance, it is human justice conducted by magistrates, but it is justice that works,” he said.
With regard to the press, “it’s an open situation, where there are spaces for debate, a particular situation where the government is challenged daily without there being any prosecution, where ministers are implicated, cases that come out in the press without it giving rise to prosecution, where journalists have rights. They are organized in a national press council…”, listed the academic.
And to add that this is where the comparison with Algeria is important. “Algeria would have gained 12 places, it is in 134th place. It’s still amazing! he exclaimed.
With a situation like that in Algeria, the fact that it has gained places in the rankings is “surreal” according to the political scientist. “I know the situation of the Algerian press… there are 72 Algerian journalists who have been prosecuted, there are 23 who are still in prison. There are print media outlets and online newspapers that have been shut down by the current power. This is the situation in Algeria,” he said.
“Seriously, who can say that the situation of the press in Algeria has improved by 12 places? asked the academic, saying that she should not be in 134th place but rather among the very last in the ranking given the climate of repression in the neighboring country.
But for him, if the situation in Morocco has been so criticized, unlike that of Algeria, it is because there are links between organizations like RSF and foreign political lobbying networks.
“I studied the paragraphs devoted by Reporters Without Borders to Morocco. It is a copy paste of the American resolution presented by a certain number of senators. It’s word for word,” Mustapha Sehimi said.
He points out in the sense that there is a commercialization and a connection between what certain professional associations say abroad and political relays. For the political scientist, “it is the trial of this manufacturing process (of this kind of report, editor’s note) that must be done today”.
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