Morocco: Prison for Rapper Who Criticized Police

Morocco: Prison for Rapper Who Criticized Police
Muzzling a Musician, Country Hosting Music Festivals Strikes Sour Note
May 12, 2012
© 2012 Human Rights Watch Related Materials: Morocco: Police Violence a Test for Revised Constitution Morocco hosts one famous international music festival after another each spring, but meanwhile it imprisons one of its own singers solely because of lyrics and images that displease the authorities.

Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East and North Africa director (Rabat, May 12, 2012) – The sentencing of a rapper on May 11, 2012 to one year in prison for “insulting the police” shows the gap between the strong free-expression language in Morocco’s 2011 constitution and the continuing intolerance for those who criticize state institutions. The sentence was handed down one week before the opening of the international Mawazine music festival in Rabat, which is held under the patronage of King Mohammed VI.
Mouad Belghouat, better known as “al-Haqed” (the sullen one), has been in pretrial custody since March 29 because of his rap song “Kilab ed-Dowla” (Dogs of the State), which denounces police corruption, and a YouTube video set to the song.

“Morocco hosts one famous international music festival after another each spring, but meanwhile it imprisons one of its own singers solely because of lyrics and images that displease the authorities,” said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East and North Africa director at Human Rights Watch.

The first-instance criminal court of Ain Sbaâ (Casablanca) found Belghouat guilty of “showing contempt” toward “public servants in the exercise of their duty,” with the intention of “undermining their honor,” under article 263 of the penal code, and “showing contempt” toward state institutions, under article 265. The court rejected all motions to free Belghouat pending a definitive verdict. His lawyers said they planned to appeal.
The main evidence was a YouTube video containing a photo-montage of a policeman whose head had been replaced by a donkey’s. Belghouat denied any connection to the video other than that it was set to his song. Belghouat’s lawyers told Human Rights Watch that no evidence was presented in court implicating the defendant in the production or online posting of the video. The court, which also sentenced Belghouat to a fine of 1000 dirhams (US$115) in addition to the prison term, has not yet issued its written judgment, which should explain the reasoning behind the verdict.
The case stems from a complaint filed by the General Directorate of National Security (Direction Générale de la Sûreté Nationale, DGSN), the security agency that includes the judicial police, among other police branches. The complaint refers to the donkey image and another image of three policemen carrying a person, perhaps a protester, by his limbs, as well as the lyrics calling the police corrupt and, according to the complaint, referring to them as dogs.
Belghouat, 24, lives in the low-income Oukacha neighborhood of Casablanca. His rap songs denouncing corruption, injustice, and