A court in Rabat sentenced former Moroccan minister Mohamed Ziane, born 81 years ago in Malaga to a Spanish mother, to five years in prison on Saturday for “involvement in the misappropriation of public electoral funds” from his opposition political party. Former dean of the Bar Association of the Moroccan capital and lawyer for those arrested in the popular uprisings that shook the Rif region (north) between 2016-2017, Ziane is considered by international NGOs defending human rights to be a prisoner of conscience. He has been in Arjat prison (on the outskirts of Rabat) since November 2022, when he was sentenced to three years in prison for 11 crimes, including “insulting institutions”, “setting a bad example to minors”, “adultery” or “sexual harassment”.
In September 2022, Ziane posted a video on social media criticising Morocco’s “absences” – the ruler spent extended periods of time abroad that year – for allegedly ignoring the kingdom’s affairs, and calling for the monarch to abdicate in favour of his son, 21-year-old Crown Prince Hassan.
The ruling has now been issued by the Court of Appeals of Rabat, according to the digital portal Hespressmeans that the elderly prisoner could remain behind bars until he is 87. Ziane has been sentenced again as former treasurer of the Moroccan Liberal Party along with other leaders of his political party, who have received prison sentences of five and two years respectively, for irregularities committed in an electoral campaign in 2015. All three were already in prison.
Last February, the former minister went on a hunger strike to protest against his conditions of detention. His son and also lawyer, Ali Reza Zian, then declared to the Efe agency who had reported the prison authorities for the lack of attention given to his father when he suffered a heart attack. His lawyer and son, who believes that the sentence imposed is equivalent to a life sentence for a prisoner of such an advanced age, has announced that he will appeal the ruling due to lack of evidence.
Mohamed Ziane served as one of Morocco’s leading state lawyers. He resigned as Minister of Human Rights in 1996 after publicly questioning an official anti-smuggling campaign that followed the guidelines given to the government by the then King Hassan II. Founder of the Moroccan Liberal Party, he was responsible for the legal defence of journalist Taufic Buachrín, director of the daily newspaper Akhbar al Yaum,who was sentenced in 2018 to 15 years in prison for several sexual crimes.
The New York-based NGO Human Rights Watch then denounced the Moroccan authorities’ “tactics” to silence political dissidents with prison sentences related to accusations of sexual crimes. In 2020, Ziane himself blamed the security services for having manipulated a video in which he appeared with a married client in a hotel room. Amnesty International warned, for its part, that the charge of adultery against him was “unfounded”, since there was no complaint from at least one of the spouses of the adulterers, as required by Moroccan law.
Knowing what’s happening outside means understanding what’s going to happen inside, so don’t miss anything.
KEEP READING
Follow all the international information atFacebook andXor inour weekly newsletter.
