Paris - Reporters Without Borders said on Wednesday that it has urged President Francois Hollande to raise press freedom concerns with Moroccan authorities during his visit to the former French colony.
The Paris-based media watchdog addressed a letter to the president, a copy of which was obtained by AFP, saying it was “important that the situation on the freedom of information should be addressed” during Hollande's two-day visit.
RSF welcomed measures announced by Morocco's Communications Minister Minister Mustapha Khalfi in November “to reform the media system.”
But the group warned that certain clauses in a draft law amounted to “worrying restrictions on the freedom of the press,” and noted the persistence of “red lines” in a press code that is still under study.
Those red lines relate in particular to the monarchy, Islam and the country's “territorial integrity,” a phrase used in Morocco to refer to the disputed Western Sahara.
International rights groups have previously accused the government in Rabat of “trying to control how journalists cover sensitive subjects.”
RSF criticised the “lack of impartiality” of Moroccan judges in cases brought against journalists, and called for an “independent and transparent mechanism for allocating press cards and accreditation” to journalists.
The NGO called on Morocco to review its decision to suspend AFP journalist Omar Brouksy's press accreditation after a story he wrote last October that referred to the participation in a Tangiers by-election of candidates “close to the royal palace.”
In RSF's 2013 press freedom index, Morocco ranked 136th out of a list of 179 countries. - Sapa-AFP