The Real Reasons Behind the Arrest of a Newspaper Director

By Jamal Elabiad

The articles Rachid Nini every day publishes in Al Massae pose a major threat to national security. This was among the charges the Moroccan judiciary directed against Rachid Nini, the director of the Moroccan daily and independent newspaper Al Massae.

I do add my voice to a Moroccan lawyer and human rights activist who said that Rachid Nini’s arrest was a political decision. In other words, he was arrested simply because his newspaper has become a serious threat to the interests of all lobbies of corruption in Morocco, and it’s the latter that invariably use the judiciary to silence independent journalists, including Rachid Nini. I can say with confidence that it’s the lobbies of corruption, not the judiciary, that lie behind the arrest of Rachid Nini.

Furthermore, journalist Ahmd Mansour once invited Rachid Nini to one of his programs on Al Jazeera. Among the questions he asked Rachid Nini was “who provided you with the secret news you write about in your daily column?” Rachid Nini’s reply was that he, like all journalists, obtained news from the Internet and newspapers as well as his own reliable sources. He also added that he couldn’t give his sources’ names in order not to cause them any problems.

It’s beyond doubt that Rachid Nini was arrested due to the fact that he refused to name the people who every day provide him with confidential pieces of news on different Moroccan administrations and institutions. Add to this that that the Moroccan authority forces would not have arrested him had it managed to find out who his trusted sources are.

Another reason why Rachid Nini was brought to court is that fact that he is the only Moroccan journalist who has the guts to shed light on the kinds of corruption other independent journalists avoid even hinting at for fear of being arrested, including corruption in the Moroccan military and intelligence forces, and that of the king’s friends. Fouad Ali Al Hima and Mohmed Mounir El majidi are two examples in point.

“Prison, for me, is better than accepting your offers.” Rachid Nini once wrote. That simply means that his arrest not only shows that he, unlike many journalists, preferred to be arrested than to accept the bribes the lobbies of corruption in Morocco promised to give him if he gave up playing the role of a whistleblower, but it also put the lie to all the accusations that were leveled against him, one of which is cooperation with the Moroccan intelligence (or DST).