In the past, dissidents in Morocco were faced with clear-cut political trials,
which made them heroes and earned them public opinion support.
Nowadays, they are accused of rape, theft, treason…
This is more efficient because they are cut off from public support.
Allegations of serious crimes should be investigated thoroughly and tried fairly.
But in Morocco, when the accused is a dissident, fair trial norms are often violated.
That is just a chapter of a sophisticated playbook that Moroccan authorities have developed
to muzzle high-profile dissidents.
After more than two years of research,
Human Rights Watch exposes how that playbook works.
The playbook tactics include a mix of character-assassination campaigns,
video and electronic surveillance,
unfair trials ending in unjust verdicts,
witness intimidation,
and sometimes physical violence and the targeting of family members.
“Maati Monjib, the Historian Liar”
“Monjib, the Renegade Who Betrayed Morocco”
“Screw the Traitors: Maati Monjib Is a Foreign Agent”
“Monjib: a Hired Gun, Ungrateful Liar, and the Rest Is Yet to Come."
“The Criminal Mindset of Maati Monjib"
This is just a small sample of the headlines
that websites close to the authorities published about me.
Me and others… Anyone who raises their head, they get this treatment.
They planted two video cameras in the AC units of my apartment – here’s one.
They filmed me in intimate situations with my fiancée,
and then sent the videos to her family members.
A tech lab informed me that my smartphone had been infected with the spyware Pegasus,
which allows access to emails, photos, recordings, phone calls… everything.
Basically, they had access to all my private life.
Omar remained in pretrial detention, without [detailed] justification for a year,
without access to his own case file.
He didn’t know the [detailed] charges against him.
How could he defend himself without even knowing that?
When Omar’s trial started, the tribunal refused to listen to witnesses in his favor.
In the end, after many sessions, Omar was sentenced to 6 years.
When the police were interrogating me, they pressured me to say
that I was a victim of sexual harassment at the hands of journalist Taoufik Bouachrine.
Of course, I refused because the man never harassed me.
After the [interrogation] report was out,
I discovered that they made me say what I had refused to say, and that my [interrogation] report had been falsified.
That’s when I understood that they really wanted to take him [Bouachrine] down.
After I protested, they prosecuted me for “defamation” [of the police]
and the tribunal sentenced me to 6 months in jail at record speed.
Because of all that, I decided to leave Morocco. I had no choice.
I had left a work meeting, it was the evening, I was walking back home,
when 2 men suddenly attacked me, punching and kicking.
They especially targeted my face, but also hit me on multiple parts of my body.
Since they broke my glasses, I couldn’t see anything. I fell on the ground, but they kept kicking me.
The attack was quick and professional.
I filed a complaint, but the police didn’t deal with it seriously.
My husband received pictures showing me, my lawyer and my daughter in my hotel room.
These pictures were accompanied by a text message claiming that I cheated on my husband with my lawyer.
Another time, I was walking in Casablanca, when two [unknown] men accosted me,
threatened me and said, “Your daughter is dead”, mentioning her name.
My daughter was then 6.
I called home, thank God, she was okay. I was beside myself.