Six Moroccan activists were charged with belonging to an ‘illegal’ protest movement during demonstrations last Sunday, according to the Project for Middle East Democracy.
On Wednesday, they were charged with being involved in the “banned February 20 Movement.” The movement consists mainly of students and calls for democratic constitution and an end to autocracy in Morocco.
As prominent blogger and Moroccan lawyer Ibn Kafka pointed out on Twitter, the youth movement is not a legal entity and cannot be banned. The criminalizing of the February 20 Movement would be a discreet attempt by the regime to suppress the movement further.
Meanwhile a Moroccan appeals court upheld a one-year sentence for rapper Mouad Belghawat for “insulting a police officer in the exercise of his duties” in his music. Belghawat is an outspoken member of the February 20 Movement.
