VZCZCXRO7447
RR RUEHDE
DE RUEHRB #1180/01 2001733
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
R 191733Z JUL 07
FM AMEMBASSY RABAT
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC 6999
INFO RUEHAS/AMEMBASSY ALGIERS 4476
RUEHTU/AMEMBASSY TUNIS 9335
RUEHEG/AMEMBASSY CAIRO 2116
RUEHLB/AMEMBASSY BEIRUT 0487
RUEHDM/AMEMBASSY DAMASCUS 0669
RUEHCL/AMCONSUL CASABLANCA 3237
RUEHLO/AMEMBASSY LONDON 3337
RUEHFR/AMEMBASSY PARIS 4685
RUEHNK/AMEMBASSY NOUAKCHOTT 3526
RUEHDE/AMCONSUL DUBAI 0099

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 03 RABAT 001180 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SENSITIVE 
SIPDIS 
 
SECSTATE FOR NEA/PPD, NEA/MAG, IIP/G/NEA/SA 
LONDON FOR MOC 
DUBAI FOR PELLETIER 
 
E.0.12958: N/A 
TAGS: KPAO SCUL OIIP KIRC PHUM KMPI MO PGOV
SUBJECT: Moroccan journalists detained for publishing confidential 
government documents 
 
¶1. (U) This message is sensitive but unclassified; please protect 
accordingly. 
 
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Summary 
------- 
 
¶1.  (SBU) A newspaper publisher and journalist were arrested on July 
17 for publishing classified military documents; they remained in 
custody as of COB July 19.  The Moroccan Press Union offered 
qualified support for the journalists, focusing mostly on the 
legality of the arrest procedures.  The head of publishers' 
federation was more categorical in writing that the journalists had 
likely done nothing illegal, and should not have been detained.  In 
private conversations, the journalists' colleagues have been largely 
unsupportive, questioning the ethics of publishing documents that 
had the potential to undermine public security during this sensitive 
period of high alert.  Most contacts assessed that the public 
prosecutor was primarily concerned with identifying the source of 
the leak.  End summary. 
 
¶2.  (U) Abderrahim Ariri, director of independent weekly Al Watan, 
and one of his reporters, Mustafa Hormatallah, were arrested on July 
17 for publishing confidential government documents.  A large number 
of police officers searched Ariri's residence and Al Watan's offices 
on the same day, seizing documents and computers.  The arrests came 
in response to a series of articles Al Watan ran on July 14 
entitled, "The secret reports behind the state of alert in Morocco," 
which contained information from confidential military documents 
regarding the reasons behind the GOM's July 6 decision to raise its 
state-of-alert level to the maximum.  One of the stories reproduced 
a memo from the "Fifth Bureau" (a military counterterrorism unit) 
advising security services to be on guard following the publication 
of an online video calling for jihad against Morocco and other 
Maghreb states.  Casablanca's public prosecutor, Moulay Abdallah 
Alaoui Belghiti, ordered the two men be investigated for revealing 
national secrets.  Ariri and Hormatallah remain in detention in an 
unknown location. Belghiti has stated that a number of top-secret 
security documents were seized from Ariri, and denounced the 
publication of the documents as "an act against the law and 
reprehensible."  Belghiti also launched an investigation to 
determine the source of the leaked documents. 
 
¶3.  (SBU) Public reaction to the arrests has been limited. 
Pro-palace daily Le Matin publicly supported the arrest in its daily 
editorial today (see block quotes below).  The Moroccan National 
Press Union (SNPM) issued a communique denouncing the arrest as 
"exaggerated" and "oppressive," and averring that in the absence of 
a law regulating access to information, journalists were pushed to 
rely on their own independent initiative to gain access to 
information.  When asked about the communique, SNPM Secretary 
General Younes Mjahid stated that the union's concerns were 
primarily focused on the fact that the men had been detained without 
being charged, and that both their detention and the investigation 
had been ordered by a public prosecutor rather than a judge. 
 
¶4.  (U) Abdelmouneim Dilami, President of the Moroccan Federation of 
Publishers and director of the largest media group in Morocco, 
expressed stronger public support for the journalists arrested.  In 
an editorial in independent daily L'Economiste, Dilami called the 
arrest "dangerous," stressing that only a judge had the authority to 
order the journalists arrested, and questioning whether the 
journalists had in fact broken any laws in publishing the documents. 
 He contended that the leaks were the fault of the responsible 
security service, and the journalists should not be held responsible 
(see block quote below). 
¶5.  (U) International watchdog organizations Reporters Without 
Borders (RSF) and the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) issued 
measured condemnations of the arrest.  RSF released a statement 
stating: "It is wrong to arrest these two journalists and keep them 
in custody, especially as it would have sufficed to summon them for 
questioning.  . . .the internal memo published in the weekly seems 
not to have contained any confidential information. . . [T]he 
journalists should not be turned into scapegoats."  Similarly, CPJ 
stated that it is "deeply troubled" by the incident. 
¶6.  (SBU) In private communications with the Public Affairs Section 
(PAS), a wide range of media contacts criticized Al Watan for 
 
RABAT 00001180  002 OF 003 
 
 
publishing the documents, and evinced very little sympathy for their 
colleagues.  Many argued that Al Watan should not have published 
confidential government defense documents during a particularly 
 
SIPDIS 
sensitive period for Morocco's national security, and questioned the 
ethical standards of the journalists implicated.  Many said this was 
a case of national security, not press freedom.  Our contacts in the 
press opined that the public prosecutor was primarily concerned with 
identifying the leak; it was not clear whether he intended to pursue 
a criminal case against the journalists as well. 
 
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Comment 
------- 
 
¶7.  (SBU) As with most recent cases touching on freedom of the press 
in Morocco, this incident is not amenable to clear-cut analysis. 
Moroccans are especially sensitive to the tense security environment 
they currently face, in which checkpoints at the entrances to major 
cities have become the norm.  Thus, many are questioning the ethics 
(if not the legality) of publishing a photocopy of a secret document 
relating to security.  That said, at the very least the procedures 
followed to detain the journalists were of questionable legality. 
Moreover, it is disconcerting they have been kept incommunicado for 
more than two days.  Post will continue to follow these developments 
and assess whether we need to formally raise this case with the GOM. 
 End comment. 
 
¶7.  (U) Block quotes: 
 
¶A.  "Abuse of Power," front page editorial by Abdelmouneim Dilami, 
President of the Moroccan Federation of Publishers and Director of 
independent daily "L'Economiste": 
 
The seizure of the weekly Al Watan and the arrest of its director, 
Ariri, are dangerous and worrisome for more than one reason. First 
of all, on the level of procedure, nothing justifies the director of 
a newspaper being arrested in such a manner as long as the rebuke is 
linked to the exercise of his profession. This tendency to 
criminalize the press is worrisome.  Do we need to reiterate that 
the role of the press is to inform public opinion, and that 
information is a right of a sovereign people?  We are not giving 
ourselves over to grandiloquence, but simply reiterating elementary 
principles.  This newspaper published some internal documents of the 
security services, some trivial documents.  Even if there is fault, 
which in our eyes is not the case, it is up to the judge to decide 
and as long as the judge has not said so, there is no mistake and 
thus no justification for proceeding to arrest the director of the 
publication.   Indeed, if these documents coming from the security 
services ended up in the hands of some journalists, that is not the 
latter's' fault; one should take it out on the services, because 
these leaks indicated negligence.  The journalist, as for him, did 
nothing but his job, which is to publish.  He is not responsible for 
the discipline of functionaries.  The only documents that the law 
forbids from publishing are those [dealing with] cases that are 
being prosecuted by the judiciary.  One can only be surprised at the 
public authorities that dramatized the affair, as if there were 
mysterious actors seeking to sabotage the process of liberalization 
taking place.  In case these actors ignored it, they must understand 
that Morocco will never be registered among the democratic countries 
if it does not have a free press.  The professional press 
organizations contribute to managing this delicate transition phase. 
 But it is necessary at the same time that the state for its part 
not allow certain of its agents, at each positive stage, to come and 
deliberately destroy it. 
 
¶B.  "Press is pulling in opposite directions," inside page editorial 
in pro-palace, French-language daily Le Matin: 
 
The Casablanca Appeals Court public prosecutor has demanded that the 
police open a preliminary investigation into the publication by the 
weekly, Al Watan, of a dossier entitled "The secret reports behind 
the state-of-alert in Morocco". . .   Once more the irresponsible 
press has indulged in one of its favorite exercises: to defy the 
law, to trample on the sacred principles of ethics and, in the case 
that occupies us today, to violate the regulation of confidentiality 
in appropriating and publishing some secret documents belonging to 
the administration of the state.  The offense is dangerous. . . 
 
RABAT 00001180  003 OF 003 
 
 
[involving] false journalists who, yielding to sensationalism and 
believing they had a scoop, simply breached the law.  If the 
Constitution and democracy in Morocco guarantee total freedom to 
citizens, and notable to the press, as is rarely done in certain 
countries, this same freedom remains attached to a condition that is 
a sine qua non: responsibility.  . . . Not only did [the 
journalists] believe that they could publish the contents [of the 
documents] with impunity, but they deliberately reproduced the 
reports [in the form in which] they were stolen and entrusted to 
them.  . . .[Theft] of confidential documents belonging to the 
administration, which what's more were rendered public, risking 
putting in danger the security of the citizenry and violating the 
sacred character of the procedures of the state, is punishable by 
serious penalties.  . . . In the United States, stealing a secret 
defense of the state or its institutions exposes [someone] 
immediately - whatever the social rank of the personal implicated - 
to judicial procedures and to prison sentences. 
 
Bush