The Moroccan government has stipulated that all TV networks, “whether Arab or foreign," now require authorization to do TV reporting outside the capital. (Reuters)
While high-ranking Arab officials are not held accountable for misinforming or misleading the public, critical journalists in their respective countries are increasingly dragged into courts and handed harsh jail sentences following unfair trials for “spreading false news.”
The author of one of the most recent pieces of official misinformation is Moroccan Minister of Communication Khalid Naciri. In a statement to the independent daily Akhbar al-Youm al-Maghrebia, earlier this month he claimed that the draconian restrictions recently imposed on Arab and foreign TV reporting in the Kingdom of Morocco “are also implemented in all democratic countries.”
Ahmed R. Benchemsi Mr. Mostafa Khalfi, the editor of Attajdid, the daily paper of the Moroccan Islamist opposition party, PJD, has recently written an editorial that is worthwhile.
he notes that whether it is the main legal islamist party, PJD, the illegal Islamist movement, “Al-Adl-Wal-Ihsan”, the small Islamist parties linked to the terrorist suspect Belliraj, or the imprisoned Salafi jihadists, who are kept in the worst conditions, even after they apparently have renounced violence, for all these people, and despite their differences, the Moroccan government seems to have only one motto: hostility and attacks, political instability for some, legal and police harassment for others...
he also writes that for a long time, the State had a gradual dosing of its "Islamist" management; political inclusion for the PJD, tolerance for Al-Adl-Wal-Ihsan, indifference for the "small" islamist parties and a justifiable response to the violent groups. But for some time now, there are no more shades of gray. No tolerance for the bearded (islamists). They are all "enemies of the state"!
Twenty undergraduate women from Egypt and Morocco are spending this month at the University of Kansas to attend a leadership program funded by a $240,000 grant from the U.S. State Department’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs.
The KU-hosted “Women’s Civic Leadership from the Heartland,” is part of the State Department’s Study of the U.S. Institutes for Student Leaders, a program designed to promote a better understanding of the United States abroad and develop future world leaders. “Women’s Leadership” is one of the new, focused themes of the institutes that the State Department introduced this year.
Washington / Morocco Board News Service - Welcome to the wonderful world of public toilets in Morocco!
Clogged Toilets, floating garbage ... this is the spectacle offered by The Bitelma Project, a site launched in 2010 to encourage Moroccans to take photos of the nastiest locations and thus shame the operators of the institutions or businesses where the restrooms are located.
Volunteers, who are not squeamish and not afraid to confront odors and collect evidence, fan out, Cameras in hand, like modern-day James Bonds, to hunt for the most neglected toilets in the Kingdom. They visit restaurants, cafes, and schools and investigate the state of public toilettes and push government and private operators to be maintain their premises.
Elizabeth Blackney The facts defy Mr. Wolf’s logic. I can not find one instance of a Jewish, Catholic or other Christian group being expelled without cause, only for proselytizing. A lone teacher was expelled at the end of June for this same offense. There are no facts in evidence supporting claims of a widespread campaign of anti-Christian sentiment. Perhaps Mr. Wolf should be asking about Morocco’s right to enforce its own laws. Morocco, as nations go, is demonstrably modern and fair. It is not a bad actor. For state sponsored violations of human rights, the continent of Africa has far worse problems. Problems like conflict minerals and child soldiers in Congo. Or the 200,000 documented rapes that have occurred there since 1996 according to a new United Nations report. Let us look to the Sudan for examples of ethnic cleansing, genocide.
Oxford, UK / Morocco Board News Service -Western Sahara has been part and parcel of Morocco dating back to the nomadic, semi-nomadic to the most recent sedentarisation of the mixed people of the Sanhaja Amazigh, Arabs and black Africans who unified under the direct rule of the Moroccan authorities, at least since the XIth century under the Amazigh Almoravid Empire followed by that of the Almohads of the post-modern Arab-Muslim period, extending from Niger, Mali, reaching to the Ghana Empire, Senegal, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Portugal and Spain. It is this Muslim period which is the root of its problems as Spain could never forget or forgive the reign of the Amazigh Empire over Spain, a similar resentment felt by successive Algerian governments since they became an independent state in 1962.
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Morocco board news / in a decomunentary by John Cleese, It is always a good idea to define something from A to Z. It is even a better idea to define Football (the one that is actually played with both a foot and a ball) from A to Z. It is obviously a fantastic idea to have Thierry Henry, Michael Ballack, Mia Hamm, Káká, Pelé, Arséne Wenger, Pierluigi Collina and Brigit Prinz explaining the beautiful game they play better than everyone (except Ronaldinho).
On 30 June 2010, in an oped-column highly critical of Israel’s occupation of Palestine titled “The Two Sides of a Barbed-Wire Fence,” Nicholas D. Kristof of the New York Times, evidencing Arab double standard vis-a-vis Israel’s blatant abuse of Palestinian civilians, stated:. It’s fair to acknowledge that there are double standards in the Middle East, with particular scrutiny on Israeli abuses. After all, the biggest theft of Arab land in the Middle East has nothing to do with Palestinians: It is Morocco’s "robbery" of the resource-rich Western Sahara from the people who live there.
Mr. kristoff’s statement oozes as much erroneousness as the BP ruptured pipe spews crude oil in the Gulf of Mexico. Such lack of eruditeness from a renown journalist who has won numerous awards, one of which was for his reporting on the genocide in Darfur, is dazzling.
As an Arab American, I can empathize with Shirley Sherrod, the Georgia Department of Agriculture official who, last week, after being falsely accused of making anti-white racist comments, was forced to resign from her post.
For those who don't know the story:
On July 19th a right wing blogger posted a video excerpt of a speech Sherrod gave to a Georgia NAACP dinner in which she related an event that had occurred 24 years ago. A poor white farmer had come to Sherrod asking for assistance and she told her audience how she had dismissed his appeal thinking “his own kind would take care of him.”
Washington / Morocco Board News Service - A group of Moroccans residents of Belgium have been brutally beaten by Spanish Police at the border post between Morocco and the Spanish occupied city of melilia in North Eastern Morocco. The five victims suffered severe injuries and were taken to a hospital in city of Nador on the Moroccan side .
In a statement, the Moroccan Government “vehemently denounces the physical abuse and violence committed today by the Spanish police” against five Moroccan nationals living in Belgium.
“Such serious violations that are contrary to all rules of ethics were committed by Spanish border police when they found a Moroccan flag in the car of the victims... the Moroccan government emphatically protests against this unacceptable and unjustified act".
Washington / Morocco Board News Service - Moroccan Organizations of human rights on Wednesday urged the Ministry of Islamic Affairs to investigate an imam who has allegedly made "insulting" statements towards the Amazigh language, in a mosque in Rabat. The Amazigh are the native inhabitants of North Africa.
The incendiary sermon was allegedly held after a prayer at the « Al Fath » mosque in the section of Yacoub el Mansour in Rabat.
The ministry defended the imam and denied the veracity of the news.
According to the Moroccan Organization of Human Rights (OMDH), the imam in question has compared the "Amazigh movement" to Zionism in a sermon at a mosque
Aicha Akalay Washington / Morocco Board News Service - Last week, a wave of evictions has befallen the Christian community in Morocco, bringing the number of deportations to 130.
"Every three months, since the beginning of the year, the Moroccan authorities are expelling Foreign Christians with a vengeance. The novelty now is that they are providing a legal document called "the Order of expulsion of foreign resident " allowing the victims to challenge the decision before a Moroccan court, whereas before no formal written orders were provided ", says member of a Church in the capital city of Rabat who wishes to remain anonymous.
Thus, fifty foreigners have appealed to the Administrative Court "to plead their case and inquire about the reasons for the eviction notice, because the charge of proselytizing is not listed on any document and never pronounced by judges, "explained Moroccan Lawyer Ahmed Dgharni.
Washington / Morocco Board News Service - The vast majority of European countries are in the vanguard of the annual corruption ranking by Transparency International. Denmark is number two, followed by Sweden, Switzerland, Finland and the Netherlands. A little further back France is ranked at 24th in, Spain and Portugal are 32 and 35. The last of the larger European countries is Italy, which occupies the 63rd place on the last list published for the year 2009.
The three (North African) Maghreb countries are in positions 65 (Tunisia), 89 (Morocco) and 111 (Algeria), and their respective indices are 4.2 for Tunisia, 3.3 for Rabat and 2.8 for Algeria.
Siham Ali Morocco must combat corruption by adopting an overall strategy that includes more than just punitive measures, according to the Central Authority for the Prevention of Corruption (ICPC).
"Punishment alone is not enough," ICPC chief Abdesselam Aboudrar said Tuesday (July 6th) in Rabat at the presentation of his group's annual report.
"Tackling the spread of this problem is a responsibility for political, economic and social players alike. We also need to act to raise awareness and to refine our laws," he said.
Washington / Morocco Board News Service - No African country has ever reached the final of a World Cup. Morocco has not qualified since 1998. As chance would have it, however, two Moroccans, Khalid Boulahrouz and Ibrahim Afellay, would be the first in a final of a World Cup - in a Holland Orange jersey, of course!
Failing to support Morocco, which failed to qualify for the World Cup, many Moroccan fans had to find other teams to cheer. A good alternative these days is the selection of Holland, which counts in its ranks, the only players from Morocco to compete in this tournament. An additional satisfaction for these fans, the Netherlands, has qualified to play the 2010 World Cup final.
Washington / Morocco Board News Service - The Western Sahara Separatist Group, Polisario Front, has lost one of its leaders last week. An official declaration stated that Mr. Mahfoud Ali Beiba died of a heart attack at the age of 57. He was the president of the Saharawi National Council (NSC), the equivalent of a Parliament. However recent information has surfaced that contradicts the official announcement circulated by Algeria’s state Information Agency.
Mr. Beiba who had chaired, since 1997, all Polisario delegations in the negotiations on Western Sahara under the auspices of the United Nations, was actually assassinated, according to a senior Algerian official because he planned to join Morocco, reported the “Algeria Times” publication. He reportedly sent a letter to a Moroccan official, requesting a meeting, The letter was intercepted by Algerian intelligence.
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Mr. Mostafa Khalfi, the editor of Attajdid, the daily paper of the Moroccan Islamist opposition party, PJD, has recently written an editorial that is worthwhile. 
Twenty undergraduate women from Egypt and Morocco are spending this month at the University of Kansas to attend a leadership program funded by a $240,000 grant from the U.S. State Department’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs. 
Washington / Morocco Board News Service - 
The facts defy Mr. Wolf’s logic. I can not find one instance of a Jewish, Catholic or other Christian group being expelled without cause, only for proselytizing. A lone teacher was expelled at the end of June for this same offense. There are no facts in evidence supporting claims of a widespread campaign of anti-Christian sentiment. Perhaps Mr. Wolf should be asking about Morocco’s right to enforce its own laws. Morocco, as nations go, is demonstrably modern and fair. It is not a bad actor. For state sponsored violations of human rights, the continent of Africa has far worse problems. Problems like conflict minerals and child soldiers in Congo. Or the 200,000 documented rapes that have occurred there since 1996 according to a new United Nations report. Let us look to the Sudan for examples of ethnic cleansing, genocide.
On 30 June 2010, in an oped-column highly critical of Israel’s occupation of Palestine titled “The Two Sides of a Barbed-Wire Fence,” Nicholas D. Kristof of the New York Times, evidencing Arab double standard vis-a-vis Israel’s blatant abuse of Palestinian civilians, stated:. It’s fair to acknowledge that there are double standards in the Middle East, with particular scrutiny on Israeli abuses. After all, the biggest theft of Arab land in the Middle East has nothing to do with Palestinians: It is Morocco’s "robbery" of the resource-rich Western Sahara from the people who live there.
As an Arab American, I can empathize with Shirley Sherrod, the Georgia Department of Agriculture official who, last week, after being falsely accused of making anti-white racist comments, was forced to resign from her post. .jpg)
Morocco must combat corruption by adopting an overall strategy that includes more than just punitive measures, according to the Central Authority for the Prevention of Corruption (ICPC). 
Washington / Morocco Board News Service - 
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