Morocco: Awkward trial and error

What a difference three years, half-a-dozen postponements and plenty of stalling makes.

On Wednesday, Nadia Yassine, a leader of the banned Justice and Charity Islamic movement and one of the biggest thorns in the side of Morocco’s King Mohammed VI, did not even bother to make an appearance at the Rabat courthouse to face charges of publicly criticizing the monarchy.

It was a far cry from her first court appearance in the controversial case back in June 2005.

Back then, the veiled Moroccan grandmother grimly marched to the courthouse, under the full glare of international TV cameras, surrounded by scores of chanting, agitated supporters. But even more embarrassingly for the Moroccan monarchy, Yassine prominently sported white tape over her mouth, emblazoned with a red “X,” a taunting reminder that a basic human right to free speech was at stake.

The reason for Yassine’s arraignment was a 2005 interview with a Moroccan daily in which she stated she preferred a republican system of government to a hereditary monarchy.

Morocco is a country ruled by one of the world’s oldest reining dynasties. The 1,200-year-old Alaouite dynasty traces its ancestry back to the Prophet Mohammed, and is not historically known for tolerating dissents.

Yassine was promptly charged with damaging Morocco’s “holy institutions”.

A colossal mistake?

It was an act that most experts agree was a colossal mistake on the part of the Moroccan authorities.

Certainly the makhzen - a term popularly used to refer to the palace and the country’s ruling elites - underestimated the infectious charm and sheer media savvy of the 49-year-old Moroccan grandmother.

The daughter of Sheikh Abdessalam Yassine, the 79-year old founder of the virulently anti-monarchist Justice and Spirituality movement, Yassine has impeccable credentials. Her father, a revered – if somewhat ideologically erratic – Muslim scholar, spent considerable chunks of his adult life in jail for criticizing the monarchy. Articulate, intelligent and a darling of the international press, Yassine has adeptly exploited the case.

“This trial is a gift, a present, to Al Adl wa al-Ihssane,” said Aboubakr Jamai, a Nieman fellow at Harvard University, referring to the Arabic name for Justice and Charity. “Nadia Yassine is shrewdly using the issue of openness and freedom of expression because it poses a tricky situation for the palace - to crackdown on this would run counter to the values espoused by the West.”

Certainly the trial is under careful scrutiny by the international community. In a statement emailed to FRANCE 24 Wednesday, a US State Department official said: “We support freedom of expression in Morocco, and consider a free press and the free exchange of ideas to be a fundamental aspect of a democratic society. We follow this case, as we do all cases related to human rights in Morocco. We also continuously advocate for fair and impartial judicial proceedings in all cases.”

Given the controversial nature of the case, the Moroccan judiciary appears to have taken the path of inaction over the past three years. Since the initial June 2, 2005 hearing, there have been six court hearing dates that end with a postponement. “They really don’t want to judge her,” said Ali Amar, editor of Le Journal Hebdomadaire, Morocco’s leading weekly news magazine “They wish it would just go away.”

Emerging from the ‘years of lead’ - leadenly

After two decades of brutal political repression in the 1960s and ‘70s under former King Hassan, locally known as the “years of lead,” Morocco has been making a slow, democratic transition. Perched at the western extremity of the Arab world with only a few miles separating one of its edges from Europe, Morocco is often viewed as a model Arab nation, one that has close ties to the US and European capitals.

Since he ascended the throne in 2000, Mohammed’s moves to put a lid on the “years of lead” as well as his efforts to stem the rising tide of Islamism in the region have won him many admirers in Western capitals.

But within the kingdom, political opposition and freedom of expression is still strictly – and sometimes bizarrely – suppressed.

Last month, a Moroccan computer engineer was sentenced to jail for creating a Facebook profile in the name of Prince Moulay Rachid, King Mohammed’s younger brother. The sentencing came despite defense pleas that the computer enthusiast was an admirer of the prince and the profile was only intended as a bit of fun.

Following a massive outcry by the international rights community, the fake Facebook profiler was granted a royal pardon Wednesday in the lead-up to the anniversary of the birth of the Prophet Mohammed.

As the bearer of the title amir al-muminin or “commander of the faithful,” Morocco’s 44-year-old monarch is particularly well placed to offer such a pardon.

But a royal pardon for Yassine however seems unlikely, according to Jamai. For one, he notes, she would need to be convicted in order to be pardoned. To attain that, Jamai explains, “The case would have to be argued in court. Given that Nadia only said she thinks a republic is superior to a monarchy -- an idea that’s so widely accepted in modern society -- it would make an interesting debate. But that’s the last thing the monarchy wants.”

By Leela Jacinto/ FRANCE 24