Rain and sacrifice in Tangier

Despite many physical advantages, Tangier is not an easy place to fall in love with. Nestled under the Rif Mountains between the Straits of Gibraltar and Cape Spartel, this geographically significant city stares out to Spain, straddles the Mediterranean and the Atlantic and also forms a crucial land bridge between Europe and Africa. Yet despite all these natural advantages, modern Tangier seems mean, gritty and indefinably scary. All I saw was a poor town with a dirty beach in the rain.

Others have seen a more romantic side to Tangier when the charm was not quite so faded. It was the city the producers had in mind for the film “Casablanca” and arguably has as cinematic a name. Tangier was the wartime setting for spies and spivs. But when another movie came out in 1942 with the title Algiers, the makers switched Rick’s Café to the more prosaic financial and commercial capital of Casablanca. Tangier has long been the main European diplomatic settlement of Morocco on the fault line between French and Spanish domination. Legally it was an international zone from 1923 until Morocco’s independence in 1956. While the rest of Morocco was under French rule, Tangier was governed by the consuls of eight European nations and had three official languages. During the war it was ruled by neutral Spain but retained an anarchic quality. According to the city’s most notable ex-pat Paul Bowles, Tangier was a place where “every fourth person was a smuggler, a spy or a refugee from justice in his native land”.

Bowles spent the last fifty years of his life here and the town (as well as Fes) was the setting for his first novel The Sheltering Sky. Inspired by Bowles’s description of the city, William Burroughs lived there for several years in two stints in the mid 1950s. Tolerant Tangier was ideal for his hedonistic lifestyle and inspired him to write The Naked Lunch. Back in 1867, another American writer Mark Twain said the houses were so jammed together it seemed like "a crowded city of snowy tombs". The city was also a muse for Henri Matisse. He stayed many times at the now derelict Hotel Villa de France where he painted the view. "I have found landscapes in Morocco," he claimed, "exactly as they are described in Delacroix's paintings."

I got no sense of Delacroix’s paintings when I was there. But I was doubly handicapped. Tangier is probably not at its liveliest in the rain and my wet stay also coincided with Eid al-Adha, the festival of the “sacrifice”. The only people on the streets were the occasional gang of youths putting a ram’s head on a bonfire to re-enact Abraham’s sacrifice in lieu of his son Isaac. I was not aware of my coincidental timing until I woke up in the morning and heard a strange sound of silence coming from the street. The normal mad Moroccan hubbub was missing. All the shops were shut, the streets were empty. Even the hustlers pushing dope were quiet.

This eeriness was in stark contrast to the mayhem of the two days before. I arrived late at night after an exhausting and delayed eight hour train trip from Fes. When we got off the train, I was immediately approached by a petit taxi driver who offered to take me to the centre for 40 dirhams. Thinking the fare should be about half that, I haggled with him and said twenty. His side came down to 30 but I still shook my head in refusal. But he was unmoved and drifted off seeking more favourable succour (sucker?). Suddenly I realised the expected deluge of better offers weren’t there and there were no more taxi drivers around. I turned around to look for my guy and was prepared to accept the 30 but he had disappeared into the throngs.

That left a long walk into town. This was the last thing I needed after arriving two hours late. I heartily cursed my overly hard bargaining stance. As usual with Morocco, there were a distinct lack of signposts giving any useful information but I asked a couple of people along the way and eventually found my way into the heart of town after about 30 to 40 minutes of rolling my luggage along.

There weren’t many hotels to speak of; those I found looked closed for winter. From a distance I could see the imposing landmark of Tangier’s most famous hotel towering over the casbah. The Moorish-style El Minzah was the epitome of international zone elegance but a bit too salubrious for a grotty backpacker. Desperate for a bed, I probably would have paid its exorbitant rates for one night until I spied the more homely accommodation of the Pension Gibraltar across the road. Its seven euros a night accommodation may have lacked a sense of history, but it was much more in my price range.

From here it was just a short hop to the top of the medina and the Grand Socco. Socco is the Spanish word for souk. The market has moved leaving the socco as a meeting place and the best spot in Tangier to hail a cab. In a beautiful 1940s building (the former Rif Cinema) is the new Cinematheque de Tanger with its reputation for showing experimental and arthouse cinema. Across the road are the arched gates that lead to the small but circuitous medina. Down the hill towards the port is the Petit Socco, a supposed hive of prostitution, drug dealing and human smuggling.

Also down the hill lies the seaport linking Morocco with Spain in an hour. The tangle of fishing boats next door ply the waters at a slower pace but the neglect of the city can be seen further on at a beachfront that has seen better days. The end of the International Zone in 1956 was catastrophic for Tangier's economy as the foreigners deserted the hotels, leaving them as decaying and empty shells. According to The Independent, Tangier may be on the rise again. It says King Mohammed VI, who came to the throne in 1999, has recognised the economic potential of the city and is giving it a facelift. “There is an energy and optimism about the city,” says the English paper, “and it seems set to flourish once more.” While I did not see too much evidence of this, I hope they are right. Tangier is certainly a city with great potential. And I’m sure the old lush would have looked a lot more appealing under Bowles’ sheltering sky of sunshine.

Finding my feet in Fes

Most people expect to get lost in the medina in Fes, but my problem was just finding it in the first place. It should be difficult to miss. This labyrinthine sprawling medina is the size of 300 football fields and the largest pedestrianised space in the world. Home to 150,000 people, Fes al Bali is a mosaic of mosques, madrassas and mad souks. For over twelve hundred years people have lived on its tangled warrens of tiny streets and alleys that break out like sores in every direction. The medina is relatively self-contained and is surrounded by forbidding high perimeter walls that are penetrated in a relatively few locations by historic city gates. But where the hell was it?

I had a map which was well-nigh useless. It was torn from the pages of a Fes tourist brochure from my hotel and it showed the three main areas of the city. But it gave little to work on for street level directions. I did manage to find my way to the Jewish medina which was closest to the new town where I was staying. The Jewish medina was about 1.5 km from the nouvelle ville (the new town built during the French occupation) and the main medina of Fes el Bali was another 1.5 km further distant. Or so the man who would be my guide told me.

This was the chap who attached himself to me when I got to Fes railway station the previous night. I had arrived after a long and late eight hour trip from Marrakech. I was tired and glad of assistance. He could speak good English and walked me to towards a local cheap hotel. He stood there waiting as I checked in and asked what time in the morning I was planning to go to the medina. “About 9am,” I thoughtlessly answered before immediately wondering why he was asking the question. “Why do you ask?” I asked. “I am your guide,” he replied confidently.

Well, this was news to me. I certainly didn’t want to be hamstrung by a guide walking through the medina, even if it was a rabbit warren. “I don’t want a guide,” I told him. He told me I needed a guide, “Fes is a big place, you will get lost.” By now I was wanting him to get lost and I insisted I was doing without. Then we cut to the chase. “Didn’t I find you a nice, cheap hotel?” he said. I could not deny this and realised I would have to pay him off now. “Yes,” I said, “and here is five dirham for you.” He was still not satisfied having seen I’d gotten ten dirham in change from the hotel bill. “You give me the ten dirham change,” he insisted. I relented and gave him the ten. I never saw him again.

The following morning however, I was having partial feelings of regret. It wasn’t so much I needed help getting round the medina. It was simply a matter of locating an entrance to it. Surely a 300-hectare walled city would be easy to find? On the map, I followed the road past the Jewish medina that seemed to be taking me to the main Bab Boujloud (Blue Gate) entrance but instead I ended up in a small street that didn’t seem to be going anywhere. I knew from the medina walls and the contours of the hill around that I was in the vicinity but the entrance way eluded me. I decided I would at least explore the Jewish medina while I was here.

Barely 150 Jews now live in Fes but they have long played an important role in the commercial and cultural life of the city. In 808AD, Sultan Idriss II admitted large numbers of Jews from Andalusia. He wanted them for their commercial skills and wide regional contacts. They were also a lucrative source of revenue as they each paid an annual tax of 30,000 dinars. The golden age of the Jewish community in Fes would last for nearly three hundred years. But the community was eventually massacred or forced to flee by fanatical Muslim sects who could not tolerate their presence.

While my presence was tolerated, some of my photography was not. The snaps of the long row of busy market stalls were fine but when I took photos of the royal palace at the top end of the Jewish medina, I incurred the wrath of the local constabulary. After one such photo, a gendarme chased me up the street. He didn’t like the last snap I took. “Show me the photo,” he demanded. I took out the camera and showed him the last photo. “Delete,” he commanded in a voice that brooked no argument. I deleted it there and then. He was satisfied. As he walked away I pointed to the opposite wall and asked was it ok to photograph that. “Yes,” he said.

A bit bemused by local photography rules, I walked along the garden walls north of the Jewish medina where I saw a good-sized map pinned to the wall. It offered me the good news that if I kept walking along that road, I would eventually arrive at the big medina; the Fes el Bali. Sure enough the road led to a large enclosed space and a gate at the northern end of the medina. I wandered through this gate but once again found myself in a maze of unpromising looking and empty pedestrian streets that led to numerous dead ends. Was this to be an episode out of Kafka where I could never find the entrance to the Castle?

I beat a hasty retreat back to the gate and satisfied myself with walking down a marketplace on the outside walls of the medina. Here at least were large crowds. Lo and behold while fascinated by the market wares I suddenly found myself back inside the medina and on what seemed to be the main drag, or one of them at least (as it turned out, it was indeed the main street through the medina).

Pleased but still a bit nervous I cagily walked further into the claustrophobic maelstrom being careful not to take any turns off I could not replicate at a late time. Where was Ariadne and her ball of string when you needed her? I followed the crowds on the main street taking me down the hill. I hadn’t found the Bab Boujloud but it seemed I was doing alright without it. From what I’d read, there were two reasons why a guide was not necessary. The first was that the medina was on a hill, so if in doubt keep walking down and you will eventually reach an exit. The second was the eight-starred signposts scattered around the medina which led to significant landmarks (I hadn’t really noticed these so far).

The streets were full of frenzied commerce. There were sidewalk cafes and souks and endless rows of shops that sold leather goods from the medina’s own tanneries. There were brass works and copper works; there were craft shops and dye pits, electrical goods, fashions and fruits, and there were all sorts of animal foods (pigmeat excepted). The bloodcurdling sight of a camel’s head perched on a butcher’s counter took a bit of getting used to. There were rows of poultry shops all ready to chop off chooks’ heads at a moment’s notice. Meanwhile all around, men carried sheep in trolleys to destinations unknown. Donkeys carrying impossible loads were led by craggy old men who shouted “balek! balek!” (which translates roughly as “get out of the way quick!”) whenever they needed to get past you on a narrow street. This urgency was even more apparent when going downhill as they made a rapid gravity-assisted plunge through the medina.

The straight path of the road finally ran out at the entrance to the massive Karaouine Mosque. The mosque can hold 20,000 people but non-Muslims are not allowed to enter. So I took the right hand turn taking me further down the hill. This way eventually led to a triangular opening at Nejarine Square. Here, said a sign, the medina brass works were all located and sure enough wherever I looked I could see (and very much hear) the clunking of hammers on all sort of brass instruments and utensils. There was no obvious way forward from here and several possibilities. I tried to be a bit more adventurous and took some of the different paths always figuring I could make it back out from here. One of the paths took me to an exit from the medina, the Place R’cif. Great, I thought, now I have at least two escape routes. Working my way back to Nejarine Square brass works, I finally noticed the eight point directional arrows. And at the map in the centre of the square, I realised there were several routes that led between significant medina landmarks.

Armed with this crucial new knowledge, I started to explore some of the paths. The signposts weren’t always there at a fork in the road, or even sometimes wrong when they were there, but generally speaking they were a godsend for getting around the casbah. Through various wanderings I found several other exits including the Bab Guissa and the Bab R’Mila (which I renamed the Roger Milla Gate in honour of the Cameroonian football great). On my way back from one of these gates, I found the entrance to the tanneries. Several guides offered their services for payment but I wasn’t interested. I climbed through some stairs where leather wares were being sold and found the balcony where the whole tanning operation could be admired in all its glory. In the gap between buildings, rows of holes held dyes of all different colours. The process hasn’t changed in centuries. Workers stood in several of the holes and washed the hides. On the side wall, hides hung in the sun to dry. There must have been at least fifty holes of dyes in the part I saw. It stunk which shouldn’t surprise as the dyes are made of acids, pigeon shit and cow piss. As I held my nose, someone shouted at me, presumably demanding money. I ignored this, avoiding eye contact and fled the balcony as quickly as I could. I made my way back to Nejarine Square and finally found an eight-point star that was pointing the way to the mysterious Bab Boujloud.

It turns out that the road that led to the Bab was more or less parallel to the road I took to enter the medina. I didn’t find it immediately, there were several twists and turns and bad bab information that continually sent me back to the square from whence I came. But after taking a different route though the market I found the long alley back up the hill that led to the Boujloud. The monumental gate dates only to the French occupation in 1913 but the ruins of the 12th century original are right next to it. The modern gate was under scaffolds for renovations. After five or six hours tramping around the medina, I finally called it quits and made my way up the hill one last time. The paths were now heaving with people and it took a while to get out. But at least it didn’t require a guide.

Djemaa el Fna: Marrakech’s Assembly of the Dead

It seems odd travelling on an Irish airline from France to Morocco. The onflight ads are jauntily delivered in an Irish-tinged English. Yet the flight is packed with French and Moroccans heading from Marseilles to Marrakech and most of the other departures from the terminal were the same airline’s flights to Agadir, Fez and Casablanca. The carrier is of course Ryanair. The budget airline has a serious bums on seats policy and they have made significant inroads into the French-Moroccan market. As for me, this flight for 10 euro was too good to pass up. The hidden extras of checked-in baggage and credit card payment more than doubled the cost but it was still ridiculously cheap compared to European train travel. Others evidently agreed. There is not a spare seat on this plane.

And so when flight FR5152 landed on time in Marrakech, the happy travellers greet the Ryanair horserace jingle with cheers, clapping and hoots of laughter. When we get off there is much jostling for position in the passport line. The local immigration police take their time processing the queue and have to type in all the garbage information from the immigration cards onto their computers. I say garbage as my handwriting was barely legible and when asked where I was staying in Marrakech (at that stage I had no idea where I was going to stay the night), I put down “Marrakech Radisson” in a probably vain bid to seem wealthy and therefore not worth hassling. I’m not even sure there is a Radisson in Marrakech, but I knew that on my budget I certainly wasn’t staying there even if there was.

Similarly I avoid the fleet of Mercedes “grand taxies” lined up outside the terminal building and find a cheap and cheerful local bus to get me to the “centre ville”. I’m hoping that means the medina and not the new European town. The heart of Marrakech and its undoubted centre ville is the Djemaa el Fna. The name in Arabic could either mean “assembly of the dead” or “place of the vanished mosque” but there is nothing ghostlike about the Djemaa. It is a massive square packed day and night by locals and tourists alike. It is a heritage site listed by UNESCO whose cultural space is a “masterpiece of the oral and intangible heritage of humanity”.

At least, that is what it said on the cracked plaque in the square. It didn’t take long for me to see it. Thankfully the bus dropped off its load in the medina at a convenient spot between Djemaa el Fna and the magnificent 12th century Koutoubia mosque, the largest in Marrakech. Around me was a flurry of activity and noise. The road space was a seething mass of activity and a never-ending contest between cars, buses, taxies, donkeys, carts, horses, mopeds, bikes and many intrepid pedestrians. It looked daunting but when I was forced to cross the road the sea of traffic miraculously parted for me. I made it to the other side safely enough even if a few motorbikes whizzed by a bit too close for comfort.

On the other side of the road, I found my “Radisson”. This was a one star just-north-of-fleabag hotel, perfect for me. It was clean enough, and most importantly it was just a couple of hundred metres from the Djemaa el Fna. The huge square is teeming with people and noise. The squeal of singers is matched by the pounding beat of African drums. From the distance it looks as if the square is ablaze with pales of smoke rising above the rooftops. On closer inspection the fires are from the endless rows of grills and the victims are piles of chickens, pigeons, snails, pigs on spits and a bevy of other unfortunate roasted animals. Perhaps the assembly of the dead doesn’t refer to humans, after all.

Each of the restaurants comes with its own aggressive spruiker or two. These guys won’t take no for answer. Or even several noes. They plant a menu into your hand, attempt to steer you to a table and even if you are still insistently against the idea, they implore you to at least take a look at the kitchen in all its outdoor glory. And assuming you are not vegetarian but are hungry (like I was), you won’t resist their charms for very long.

Charms of a different kind take place in the square during daylight hours. The musicians are still there but instead of beating out a frenzied rhythm, the music now attempts to raise snakes from their torpor. There seems to be dozens of snake charmers scattered along the square and when walking it pays to be careful and watch where you are going. Those snakes seem drugged and probably harmless but I would imagine a dozy viper wouldn’t take too kindly to being trodden on.

Behind the square lies a dense network of souks selling every produce under the sun. And there is a sun here, even in December. It gets very cold at night as winds drift down from the nearby snowy High Atlas Mountains. But during the day, the warmth comes as a pleasant change from the European winter.

The earliest travellers to Marrakech called it Morocco City. The word Morocco is derived from Marrakech which has a Berber root “murakush” meaning land of god. It was the country’s capital for many centuries with the Djemaa el Fna the city’s heart and soul. Here people met and listened to storytellers spinning their yarns. Acrobats, musicians, dancers, charmers and healers vied for attention and money. The square became a hub of trade and entertainment, a gift it has not lost to this day.

Morocco under pressure over Western Sahara's phosphate mining

A third international shipping company has bowed to pressure in the last week to quit economic activity in ports in occupied Western Sahara. A Hong Kong-based company Jinhui Shipping has followed two Norwegian companies Arnesen Shipbrokers and R-Bulk, which stopped shipping out phosphates from the territory last year. All three have stopped their exports after pressure from Pro-Sahrawi groups and more companies are expected to follow. This sophisticated pressure is being brought to bear worldwide with spokesman Malainan Lakhal currently in Australia to promote the anti-Moroccan phosphate cause.

Western Sahara is a small barren North-African nation on the Atlantic coast, bordered by Algeria, Mauritania and Morocco. It is also the last colony in Africa. The country has been in political limbo since 1976. The independence group Polisario fought a war with Morocco until a 1991 ceasefire. Since then, the country’s Sahrawi population have been waiting for a UN-sponsored referendum to allow them to vote for either independence or continued integration with Morocco. However with Morocco considered an important ally of the US because of its cooperation in fighting terrorism and its generally pro-West policies, the Sahrawis may be waiting a while.

Western Sahara was a former Spanish colony known as Spanish Sahara. After Spain withdrew when Franco died, it was invaded by Morocco with the implicit support of the US in 1976. Today Morocco illegally earns billions of dollars each year from the rich fishing off the coast and as well as inheriting Spain’s interests in phosphate. It also continues to rely on US support to hose down any nasty UN Security Council resolutions forcing them to comply with the referendum request.

Phosphate mining began under the Spanish administration in the 1950s and was responsible for bringing many nomadic Sahrawis into the sedentary life of towns. In 1976 the International Court of Justice found overwhelming support for Polisario and ruled that the people of Western Sahara had a right to determine their own future. But when Morocco invaded despite the ruling, the majority of the population fled across the borders ahead of Moroccan attacks. The local population are called “Ahel es-Sahel” or Sahrawi people and are a mix of Berber, Bedouin and black African tribes.

Almost a quarter of the population (over 80,000 people) still live in refugee camps in neighbouring Algeria. Those that remain in Western Sahara are subject to Moroccan law. In Morocco, both the law and tradition prohibit criticism on three topics: the monarch; the sanctity of Islam; and Morocco's claim to the Western Sahara. Security surveillance is tight and harassment of domestic and foreign human rights workers is common. Police also routinely repress public protest using excessive force against demonstrators, some of whom threw rocks and Molotov cocktails.

Morocco is the world’s leading exporter of phosphates which are used in the fertilising industry. Through internal and Western Saharan mines, it controls an estimated 75 per cent of the world market. Their exporting process was greatly facilitated by a Free Trade Agreement with the US in 2004 (though the US explicitly excluded Western Sahara from the FTA). But with Morocco signing partnerships with several North American mining companies such as Canadian firms PCS and Agrium, and US-based Mosaic, Agrifos and Innophos, there is strong commercial pressure to support the Moroccan presence in the colony.

Last week, an UN envoy for the territory delivered a blow to Polisario supporters when he said that the Moroccan presence would not be ending any time soon. The UN mediator for the territory, Peter van Walsum, told the Security Council that independence was unrealistic. Van Walsum had concluded “there was no pressure on Morocco to abandon its claim of sovereignty over the territory and, therefore, that an independent Western Sahara was not a realistic proposition." Van Walsum, a Dutch diplomat, later said his comments were a "gamble" to break the negotiating logjam. But the only player happy with his gamble was Morocco. As Reuters point out, van Walsum’s gamble was a recognition of a diplomatic reality – “that Rabat can and will reject independence as long as its control has the quiet backing of big powers like the United States and France.”

Fouad Mourtada: Jailed for fake Facebook entry

Moroccan man Fouad Mourtada has been jailed for three years for setting up a fake Facebook profile impersonating a member of the country's royal family. On Friday Mourtada was sentenced to three years jail and a fine of 10,000 dirhams ($US 1,350) after a court found him guilty of "usurping the identity of HRH Prince Moulay Rachid". The prosecutor and judge repeatedly reproached Mourtada for having “undermined the sacred integrity of the realm as represented by the prince".

According to the website set up by his family Help Free Fouad, Mourtada is a 26 year old IT engineer and a native of the town of Goulmima in the South Eastern region of Morocco. They say he is “a reserved and timid type” who created Internet friendships and was accustomed to participating in forums and exchange sites. They say he is “a Facebook user just like many young people around the world”.

Mourtada created the Facebook profile of the Prince as a joke. On 5 February, he was arrested in Casablanca on the charge of “villainous practices linked to the alleged theft of identity”. He was blindfolded and taken to a local police station where he was harassed and beaten unconscious. His family were allowed to visit him after a week where Mourtada told them he was "persecuted, beaten up, slapped, spat on and insulted." He continued: "I was also slammed for hours with a tool on the head and the legs."

His arrest and subsequent treatment brought a wave of protest by media and bloggers. Agoravox called Mourtada “a Martyr of the Net” and Le Monde Libere described the case as a “media lynching” pushed by the Moroccan royal family. Last week some Moroccan bloggers suspended their regular blog entries for 24 hours in protest at Mourtada's detention.

There is no precedent anywhere in the world for a person receiving a jail sentence for posting a fake Facebook profile. Fouad's fake profile was not malicious, and it did not in any way attempt to slander Moulay Rachid. The prince is the younger brother of Morocco's Head of State, King Mohamed VI. Mourtada admitted placing the profile of the Prince on Facebook but said he had done this out of admiration for him, not out of any wish to undermine the monarchy.

Two Amnesty International (AI) delegates attended the trial and AI released a statement yesterday issuing its concern. They say the hearing failed to satisfy international fair trial standards. AI said the main reason for the prosecution was the authorities' determination to clamp down on anyone deemed to be undermining the monarchy and what the prosecutor termed the "social and sacred values of Morocco." The court failed to investigate the alleged breaches of Mourtada’s rights during arrest and detention, and his allegations that he was ill-treated in custody and forced to "confess." AI called for a re-trial and for allegations of mistreatment to be “fully and impartially investigated.”

Moroccan-born author Laila Lalami writing in The Nation wondered how Moroccan police found out Mourtada's identity. Lalami said Mourtada did what millions of other people his age do every day: “create profiles, real or fake, on social networking websites”. Lalami said such spoofing was common. "There are fake profiles on Facebook for everyone from Brad Pitt to Mother Teresa, from King Abdullah to Osama bin Laden”, she said “There are 500 profiles for George W. Bush."

But criticism of the Moroccan royal family remains taboo. The French-based Reporters Without Borders annual report for 2007 said that investigating the role of the king and the royal family in running the country is the main reason journalists are prosecuted. Press law has many offences carrying prison sentences and journalists often have to pay very heavy fines and damages for offending the king, the monarchy, the nation, territorial integrity, God or Islam. According to Culture Maroc, it all boils down to the same problem: “Modern Morocco vs. the Morocco of the Middle Ages”.

Moroccan journalists terror laws sentence upheld

Press groups are dismayed after a Moroccan appeals court upheld the sentences of two journalists convicted under the country’s anti-terror laws for publishing confidential information. The case is the latest in a string of reverses for press freedoms in Morocco. The two men were arrested for an article entitled "Secret reports behind the state of alert in Morocco" published in the weekly newspaper Al Watan Alaan’s 14 July edition. The report attracted the ire of the authorities and they pressed criminal charges against the authors for the possession of stolen materials. According to Khadija Riyadi, president of the Moroccan Human Rights Association, “Moroccan courts are used as a mechanism to clamp down on the press and mete out severe punishment to journalists who are known for their courage in breaking taboos".

The original court had imposed an eight month jail sentence on Mustapha Hurmatallah, the journalist who wrote the article. His boss Abderrahim Ariri was given a six-month suspended sentence. Moroccan journalists went on a brief strike to protest the original decision. Hurmatallah was released last week pending the decision but will now be forced to return to prison to serve out his time. The appeals court ruled against him but did reduce his sentence by one month. Ariri’s suspended sentence was also upheld and reduced by one month.

Two other press freedom cases are also in front of the courts. The publisher of the two Moroccan weeklies has been charged with showing disrespect to the monarchy. Moroccan Communication Minister Nabil Benabdellah tried to downplay criticisms that the government is trying to limit press freedom in the country. A delegation of press, human rights and the civil society organisations met the minister on Friday to protest about what they called breaches of freedom of speech rights. Benabdellah rejected their claims and the government is only trying to “consolidate democracy”.

Morocco was noted for having the freest press in the Arab world but many of these freedoms were eroded in the last five years. The Press Law was amended in 2002. The new law made it illegal to criticize Islam, the king, and the royal family. It is also illegal to publish anything that challenges Morocco's "territorial integrity," which is a coded reference to Morocco’s continued occupation of Western Sahara.

In the wake of the Casablanca suicide bombings of May 2003 the press lost further freedoms. Within eleven days of the bombs which killed 43 people near Western and Jewish targets, Morocco’s parliament overwhelmingly passed a controversial anti-terrorism law. The law broadened the definition of terrorism and defined a terrorist act as "any premeditated act, by an individual or a group, that aims to breach public order through terror and violence". The law had serious implications for the press, as its wording criminalised the dissemination of material deemed to support terrorism. Several journalists have been prosecuted under this law.

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), says there is a “government-inspired judicial assault against outspoken newspapers”. It cites the 2006 case of the independent weekly newsmagazine Le Journal Hebdomadaire which had to pay 3 million dirhams (US$359,700) in a defamation suit brought by Claude Moniquet, head of the Brussels-based European Strategic Intelligence and Security Centre. Moniquet said the publication had defamed him in a six-page critique questioning the independence of his think tank’s report on the disputed Western Sahara.

In the trial, Le Journal Hebdomadaire was barred from introducing an expert witness and the court provided no explanation for how they reached the unprecedented damage award which threatened the magazine’s financial viability. Two days before the verdict, government-organised demonstrations were staged in front of the paper’s offices after malicious and incorrect rumours spread that the paper had reprinted the cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad. The demonstration was not spontaneous. Moroccan officials recruited and provided transportation to people from poor neighborhoods who had been told that the target of the protests were “infidels” who had reprinted the cartoons.

Reporters Without Borders latest annual report said 2006 was a bad year for press freedoms in Morocco. It said the Arab-language weekly Nishan was shut down in December for “undermining Islam”. It also cites censorship, harassment and legal action against independent media which continued throughout the year. Morocco also banned foreign journalists reporting on human rights from going to Western Sahara. Detective arrested Jamal Wahbi, of the weekly Assahifa al-Maghribiya, for photographing three prisoners who were suspected terrorists coming out of a court building in the city. Meanwhile Al-Jazeera correspondent, Hassan Fatih, was physically attacked by police while covering a sit-in by the families of political prisoners in Rabat in June. He was taken to hospital with neck and shoulder injuries.

After Moroccan media went on strike to support the Mustapha Hurmatallah case, they received the backing of the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ). The IFJ called on media unions worldwide to support the striking journalists who stopped work for thirty minutes in August. “This case is looking more and more like a travesty of justice,” said IFJ Vice President Younes M’Jahed, “The press in Morocco is now facing a dangerous impasse where the authorities are spinning out of control, seizing publications and imprisoning journalists using the flimsiest excuses”.

Polisario and Morocco pitch for Western Sahara

The two opposite sides in the conflict in Western Sahara have both presented blueprints for autonomy of the disputed region to the UN this week. The Moroccan government presented their plan on Wednesday, just one day after the independence movement Polisario presented theirs. Although both plans are not yet in the public domain, UN diplomats say the two sides still looked far apart because Morocco was not willing to permit the referendum on independence that Polisario has demanded.

Western Sahara is a former Spanish colony with a population of 260,000 people. Morocco has ruled the country since 1975, an occupation that has been continually opposed by the Algerian-based Polisario. The UN brokered a ceasefire agreement in 1991 that promised a referendum on independence but Rabat now rules it out, saying autonomy is the most Morocco will offer.

Polisario released a statement on 10 April which outlined their proposal to the UN. Their proposal was submitted, it said, “out of concern to contribute to the more than 30-year-old decolonization conflict between Morocco and the Sahrawi people and consequently to the advent of a fair and lasting peace in our region”. Polisario claimed their solution was “flexible and constructive” and “guarantees Sahrawi national rights in conformity with resolutions of the UN…which all call for the exercise of Sahrawis' right to a vote on self-determination though a free and legitimate referendum."

Western Sahara has been troubled by invaders since the 19th century. In 1884 Bismarck called a meeting of the European powers of the day. The subject of the meeting was to carve up Africa. The Berlin Conference saw the colonial powers scramble to gain control over the interior of the continent. Spain had lost much of its power since the glory days of Phillip II. They had to be content with Rio Muni and Western Sahara. They confirmed their rule with a series of wars against the local tribes.

Western Sahara avoided occupation in World War II due to Spain’s neutrality. But it became caught up in the wave of nationalism that swept Africa in the post-war years. In 1967, Mohamed Sidi Brahim Bassiri created the Movement for the Liberation of the Sahara known as Harakat Tahrir. The movement quickly gained the support of the indigenous Sahrawi people.

Ethnic Sahrawis (Arabic for Saharan) claim descent from one of the Hassaniyyah Arabic-speaking tribes geographically associated with the Spanish Sahara. Sahrawi culture combines nomadic roots and Islamic practices. Like most nationalist movements during the 1960s-70s, Sahrawi nationalism grew in response to colonialism. Harakat Tahrir was at the forefront of this movement.

In 1970 the group made its first public stance in the capital, El Aauin. A large group gathered to present a list of demands to the colony’s governor. The governor heard the petition and then ordered the crowds to disperse. Police arrived to arrest the protest leaders and then the Spanish Foreign Legion opened fire on the restless crowd. At least eleven were killed. In the aftermath Spain cracked down on Harakat Tahrir. Out of the ashes of this movement was born the Polisario Front.

The name Polisario comes from the Spanish abbreviation Frente Popular de Liberación de Saguía el Hamra y Río de Oro ("Popular Front for the Liberation of Saguia el-Hamra and Río de Oro"). Polisario ran a highly successful guerrilla war campaign. By 1975 an exhausted Spain was gripped by Franco’s death-throes and finally agreed to demands for a referendum on independence. But neighbours Morocco and Mauritania had other ideas. Both countries claimed that Western Sahara was an artificial European construct and demanded the lands be subsumed into their countries. Algeria meanwhile was suspicious of Morocco’s land grab and threw its weight behind Polisario.

The UN and the International Court of Justice (ICJ) attempted to intervene and declared that Western Sahara had the right to self-determination. But Morocco put pressure on Spain by launching the 350,000 strong Green March, a strategic mass demonstration of mostly unarmed people who gathered near the border waiting for a signal to invade. Madrid was unhinged and secretly signed a tripartite agreement with Morocco and Mauritania to allow them to take over Western Sahara. Spain would be allowed to keep its financial interest in Western Sahara’s phosphate mines at Bu Craa.

When the last Spanish troops withdrew in 1976, Morocco invaded from the north with the implicit support of the US who refused to intervene. They quickly claimed two-thirds of the country. Mauritania invaded from the south and claimed the bottom third. Polisario, supported by a marginalised Algeria, bitterly resisted the double invasion. The war which followed bankrupted Mauritania and it withdrew its forces in 1979. Morocco then took over the whole of Western Sahara.

In 1984, the Organization of African Unity (OAU) recognised the Saharan Arab Democratic Republic (SADR), Polisario’s civilian arm. Morocco withdrew from the OAU in protest. It remains the only African country not in OAU’s successor, the African Union (AU). In 1988 Morocco and Polisario accepted a UN plan for a referendum that would allow the Sahrawis to decide between integration with Morocco or independence for the territory. Scheduled for 1992, it was postponed due to a dispute on a list of eligible voters, despite both parties previously accepting an updated version of the Spanish census of 1974. The process dragged on until 1996 until it was abandoned.

Although Western Sahara remains subject to Moroccan law, the Sahrawi population have difficulty obtaining Moroccan passports. Sahrawis are subject to close monitoring and harsh treatment from police and paramilitary forces. But while such treatment makes an independence referendum likely to succeed, the confluence of economic and military interests in the Sahara underpins Morocco’s rejectionist attitude of a plebiscite. Morocco illegally earns billions of dollars each year from the rich fishing off the coast and as well as inheriting Spain’s interests in phosphate. Now Moroccan state owned oil company Onarep Wessex has begun exploration work drilling for oil. Top generals in the Moroccan armed forces now have controlling stakes in those key industries.

Ahmed Boukhari is the Polisario representative to the UN. He said the issue must be decided by elections. Boukhari said Polisario was ready to "engage in direct negotiations" with Morocco. He said Morocco's proposal was "based on something that cannot be acceptable. It is based on that all of Western Sahara belongs to Morocco".