Spying On Reporters Is Popular And Big Business

Michael Hedges July 20, 2020 - Follow on Twitter

Almost everywhere there is an investigative news portal. Some are relatively well-known. Others, not so much, staffed by a handful of dedicated journalists. The job, though, is the same. Dictators do not like them. Immense pressure frays the mission.

Le Desk has been one of those investigative news portals. Founded in 2015 by Ali Amar, once founder of Journal Hebdomadaire and other publications, it is based in Casablanca. Its mission is to apply independence to journalism and shine a light on corruption. Le Desk is affiliated with French online news portal Mediapart and receives indirect support from CFI Media Development, part of the French Ministry of European and Foreign Affairs. It is published in Arabic and French.

Investigative reporter and human rights activist Omar Radi, a co-founder of Le Desk and currently its chief editor, was summoned to appear before the Moroccan Judicial Police (BNJP) last week (July 15). It was the fifth summons in three weeks. He was again questioned about alleged involvement in foreign financing connected to intelligence services, reported Reporters sans Frontieres (RSF) (July 16). At a press conference afterward at the National Union of Moroccan Press (SNPM) he denied all of that, saying he had been under “surveillance” for “years.” Indeed, Amnesty International established in a report last year that Moroccan authorities spied on media workers and human rights activists using the infamous Israeli-made Pegasus spyware. Investigative collective Forbidden Stories, known for relentlessly following the murder of Malta journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia and an affiliate of OCCRP, released details of Moroccan authorities using Pegasus against media workers.

More than 100 Moroccan media workers issued a declaration against “defamation media” that “slander critical voices,” a reference to rants against M. Radi in certain media, reported AFP (July 17), primarily that he was or had been in the employ of a well-known foreign intelligence service. "Whenever the authorities have pursued a critical voice, certain sites and newspapers have hastened to write slanderous articles, without any professional ethics, even breaking the laws organizing the press in Morocco,”said the letter addressed to the Ministry of Communications and others. The media workers also asked the National Press Council to impose “disciplinary sanctions.” Amnesty International was also attacked by “media known for their closeness to power and for their very aggressive tone.”

Press and media freedom watchers have been critical of Moroccan authorities for several years. In the 2020 RSF World Press Freedom Index the country ranked 133rd, above Oman but beneath the UAE. “Judicial harassment continues,” said the RSF Morocco summary. “In addition to the trials of a number of media figures that have dragged on for several years, several new prosecutions have been initiated and heavy sentences have been passed.”

“Moroccan authorities must immediately stop harassing Omar Radi with legal threats and investigations, and allow him to travel freely,” said Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) Middle East and North Africa Program Coordinator Sherif Mansour in a statement (July 2). “The Moroccan government’s ‘suspicions’ that Radi received funding from foreign intelligence services are not fooling anyone; the claim is merely an excuse to further squeeze press freedom in the Kingdom.”

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