A Moroccan appeals court on Wednesday reduced to eight months the sentence for a human rights activist convicted of comments considered offensive to the king and the judiciary after. Saida El Alami is still serving a separate three-year sentence for “disrespecting” a government body and public officials, as well as “spreading
false allegations”. The appeal was against a two-year prison sentence for “insulting the king” and “insulting a magistrate or public official in the exercise of their duties” during her first trial. Her lawyer, Ahmed Ait Bennacer, told AFP he was disappointed at the verdict from the Casablanca court of appeal. They “reduced her sentence, but it remains a conviction, we had hoped for an acquittal,” he said.
El Alami, 49, received the three year sentence in September 2022 for comments she posted on Facebook, which a court ruled “disrespected” a government body and spread “false allegations or untrue facts with the intent to infringe on people’s privacy or defame them”. The defence “will request the merging of the cases”, said Ait Bennacer. Placed in detention since late March 2022, El Alami, who describes herself a “political dissident” on Facebook, regularly published critical commentary against the authorities.
She has denounced security service officials and “corruption” within the judiciary, according to Amnesty International. El Alami had also spoken out in support of imprisoned Moroccan journalists and activists. Following her arrest in March 2022, Amnesty called on Moroccan authorities “to end the prosecutions of activists who have been critical of public figures, state officials or state institutions, and to ensure that people are free to express their opinions without fear of reprisals”.
