AP News, January 22nd, 2007
Caught in the middle of the Moroccan government's delicate balancing act with Islam, magazine editor Driss Ksikes came out of court a convicted _ yet relieved _ man. Prosecutors wanted him and a colleague jailed for up to five years, but the judge gave them a fine.
"I'm a freethinker, but I don't want to be a martyr," Ksikes said following his conviction a week ago.
After publishing an article citing jokes about Islam last month, Ksikes found himself up against a government eager to assure conservative Moroccans of its religious credentials.
The relatively light sentence _ fining Ksikes and journalist Sanaa al-Aji about $9,000 each _ also illustrates the government's desire to please the electorate without enraging Western opinion.
Press in the North African kingdom has blossomed as the government gingerly relaxes long-standing restrictions, part of King Mohammed VI's efforts to break from the dictatorial rule of his father, Hassan II, who died in 1999.
But this is a devout Muslim country, and the 43-year-old king is both recognized as a direct descendant of the Prophet Muhammad and as the country's chief religious authority.
He also wields absolute power, but is mindful of public opinion as his country's parliament heads to an election in September. The opposition Justice and Development Party, an Islamic group, is expected to win the most votes.
So while Mohammed is a U.S. ally, a moderate on the Arab-Israeli conflict and has ushered in some social reforms, he has to assert the palace's attention to Islam.
That's where Ksikes' independent Arabic-language magazine, Nichane ("Straight Ahead"), comes in.
Last month the government banned Nichane for allegedly insulting Islam with a 10-page article titled "How Moroccans laugh about religion, sex and politics."
In addition to the fine, Ksikes and al-Aji were barred from any journalistic activity for two months. Their magazine and its Web site, both shut down by the government when the scandal broke last month, will remain closed for the same period.
"I don't regret what I wrote," Ksikes said. He regretted that an article meant as a thoughtful examination of Moroccan humor offended some of his countrymen, but said he was glad to have avoided a repeat of the uproar triggered across the Muslim world last year over Danish newspaper cartoons featuring the Prophet Muhammad.
Indeed, Ksikes said he and the government held secret talks to settle the matter quickly and quietly. "We brought the affair out of the street and into the courthouse," he said.
Nichane is not the only periodical under the gun.
Aboubakr Jamai, editor of Le Journal Hebdomadaire, and one of his former journalists, Fahd Iraqi, have been told by Justice Ministry officials to come up with about $350,000 in damages in a government-supported libel suit against them _ the largest such award in Moroccan history.
Jamai had focused attention on Morocco's three-decade occupation of Western Sahara and its standoff with the Algeria-based liberation front, Polisario. It remains a crime in Morocco to criticize the king, Islam or Morocco's occupation of Western Sahara, which it insists is sovereign Moroccan territory that was seized by Spain as a colony in the 19th century.
In an article last year, Jamai and Iraqi alleged that a damaging report on Polisario by a Belgian research institute bore signs of having been directed by the Moroccan government. The report's author, Frenchman Claude Moniquet, hit back with a libel suit backed by the king's prosecutor _ proof that the court proceedings were rigged in Moniquet's favor, Jamai claimed.
"For us, it's the Moroccan regime bringing suit," he said.
He said the relatively light sentence imposed on the Nichane journalists "shows that the regime is very sensitive about its image in the West," but insisted he wouldn't do any deals.
He said he was forced to resign Thursday from Le Journal Hebdomadaire, and was planning to leave Morocco shortly. "I would refuse to pay even if I had the money," he said.
