MASARYK UNIVERSITY Faculty of Social Sciences

Department of International relations and European studies

International relations

Advocating Human Rights: The Case of Freedom of Expression in Morocco

DIPLOMA THESIS

Bc. Tereza Raková

Supervised by: Mgr. Hubert Smekal, M.A., Ph.D. UČO: 333206 Department: MV Matriculation year: 2011 Brno 2014

I declare that I work on this thesis “Advocating Human Rights: the Case of Freedom of Expression in Morocco” independently. All sources of information and references used in this thesis are listed at the end of the work.

Brno, 26 May 2014

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I would like to express my sincere gratitude to Mgr. Hubert Smekal, M.A., Ph.D. for his valuable comments and guidance while supervising my thesis. Furthermore I would like to send my special thanks to E. P., my Moroccan guide who helped me to understand the Moroccan society. Discussions with him always enriched me. I offer my thanks to Helen, my language consultant. I would like to thank all my beloved ones, my family and friends, who have supported me throughout my life. My biggest thanks goes to the one who always inspired me and will never cease to do so, to my soul mate Martin.

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Table of Contents 1 Introduction ...... 1 1.1 Definition of Key Terms ...... 2 1.2 Research Questions ...... 5 1.3 Research Design & the Methods ...... 5 1.3.1 Research Design ...... 5 1.3.2 Research Strategy ...... 6 1.3.3 Research Sample ...... 6 1.3.4 Data Collection ...... 8 1.3.5 Conceptualisation and Operationalisation ...... 9 1.3.5 Research Output ...... 11 1.4 Thesis Outline...... 11 1.5 Prime Sources of Inspiration...... 11 2 Theoretical Background ...... 13 2.1 Human Rights and International Relations ...... 13 2.2 Human Rights NGOs and World Politics ...... 15 2.2.1 Theoretical Debate ...... 16 2.2.2 NGOs’ Strategies ...... 17 2.2.3 Networking ...... 21 3 Findings ...... 23 3.1 Morocco & Human Rights ...... 23 3.1.1 Years of Lead, Dark Age For Human Rights ...... 24 3.1.2 Towards he Better Tomorrows ...... 26 3.1.3 Constitution(s) and International Treaties ...... 27 3.1.4 Morrocan Freedom of Expression ...... 29 3.2 Moroccan Human Rights Organisations ...... 34 3.3 NGO’s Strategies Within The Actual Cases ...... 37 3.3.1 Education as a Starting Point and Continous Effort...... 37 3.3.2 Investigation ...... 37 3.3.3 Report Publishing ...... 38 3.3.4 Mobilisation of Public Opinion ...... 38 3.3.5 Lobbying ...... 39 3.3.6 Direct Assistance ...... 40 3.3.7 Peaceful Manifestations ...... 40 3.3.8 Boycotts ...... 40 3.4 Networking ...... 41 3.4.1 Human Rights Advocacy Networks ...... 41 3.4.2 Advocacy Networks in Particular Cases of Oppression ...... 43 4. Discussion ...... 48 4.1. Did Moroccan Authorities Sanction Individuals Exercising Their Freedom of Expression? ...... 48 4.2 Did Human Rights Advocates Bounce the Authorities Back? ...... 51 4.3 What Strategies Did They Apply? ...... 51 4.4 Why the Advocates and Their Strategies Vary From Case to Case? ...... 54 4.4.1 Factors Internal to Advocates ...... 54 4.4.2 Factors External to Advocates ...... 57 4.5 Did the Advocates Create Networks to Respond the State Oppressions? ...... 59 4.5.1 What Conditions Does Networking Depend on? ...... 59 4.5.2 Which Advocates Are Likely to Create Networks and Which Are Not? ...... 62 4.5.3 Links Between Formation of Network and Strategies Employed? ...... 63 4.6 The Role of Media ...... 65 4.7 Closing Remarks: Risse’s Theory and My Networks ...... 66 4.8 Limits of Mine, and Suggestions for Further Research ...... 67 5 Conclusion ...... 70 6 References ...... 72 7 List of Abbreviations ...... 79 8 List of The Tables ...... 80 iii

1 INTRODUCTION

The 21st century has brought many important changes in world politics and international relations. The emergence of the non-state actors that coexist and compete with the states and that challenge and handle some of their original responsibilities provides fresh food for current international relations research. These actors have recently experienced some bright days, not only in promoting protection of environment, health care, development or global security, but are also playing an important role in human rights field. These so-called human rights advocates are activists who individually or in their mutual cooperation, unlimited by the state boundaries, seek to bring a social change. They obviously gained unprecedented capabilities these days.

During past twenty years, Morocco has experienced limited democratic transition. The 2011 Arab spring events 1 , followed by the adoption of the new Constitution provided the country the opportunity for further human rights ‘friendly’ development. Three years later, however, Morocco still ranks low on media freedom indexes, and it is repeatedly criticized not only by local, but also by international human rights organizations (Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch) for the lack of respect for human rights. Human Rights Watch stated that:

“Morocco’s 2011 constitution incorporated strong human rights provisions, but these reforms did not lead to improved practices, the passage of implementing legislation, or the revision of repressive laws. In 2013, Moroccans exercised their right to peaceful protest in the streets, but police continued to violently disperse them on occasion. Laws that criminalize acts deemed harmful to the king, the monarchy, Islam, or Morocco’s claim over the disputed Western Sahara limited the rights to peaceful expression, assembly, and association”(HRW 2014).2

The current observance of freedom of expression is, using the words of human rights advocates, considered an urgent problem in Morocco. Freedom of press, however constitutionally guaranteed, is only a wishful aspiration of some Moroccan journalists. They still have to self-censor their work. Furthermore, the teenagers are being sanctioned for manifesting their emotions in public places. And even if Moroccans can protest and demonstrate in public, not all their ideas and views may be manifested freely and liberally.

There are several reasons why I chose to analyse Moroccan freedom of expression. During my study stay in Morocco, I encountered quite a few public controversies that shared a common denominator – freedom of expression. That is why I decided to inquire human rights advocacy with respect to freedom of expression in detail. I met NGO’s representatives and I

1 Protest movements in Morocco did not reach such brutal and uncontrollable form as the revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt, the civil war in Libya or the revolts in Syria and Yemen. 2 Whole Report available at Human Rights Watch website: http://www.hrw.org/world-report/2014/country- chapters/moroccowestern-sahara. 1 spoke with the members of activist groups and civil society, too. I retrospectively delineate the reasons that lead me to this research: first freedom of expression is clearly limited; second in the vast majority of studied cases the edges of freedom are little uncertain, and finally thanks to their aspects mentioned above, they are sufficiently provocative for analysing human rights advocates’ strategies, tactics and networking potential.

1.1 DEFINITION OF KEY TERMS

Since the concepts I work with require a thorough definition of the discourse terms, I lay down these first bricks of the thesis concept here:

 The “State” stands for the sovereign entity that exercises the state power over its citizens through the norms and factual operations of its authorities and agencies (Griffins and O’Callaghan 2002: 209). Since the notion of human rights was born to provide the guarantee to the people, the States became essential human rights protectors. The assumption that the State should follow the very fundamental peoples’ rights and freedoms3, make it, in case it doesn’t, a principal human rights violator. Traditionally we understand “human rights violations” to be committed only by the states and/or persons acting on behalf of the state (Tomuschat 2003). Currently, some of the modern approaches may consider non-state actors as to participate on human rights violations as well (Kaleck and Saage-Maasz 2010). These violations usually include the situations when the abuses, ignorance or denial of basic human rights occur as a result of activity of non- state entity.

 “NGO” is any non-profit voluntary citizens’ group, which is organized on a local, national or international level and operates independently from any government (Griffins and O’Callaghan 2002: 215). Task-oriented and driven by people with a common interest, NGOs perform a variety of service and humanitarian functions, bring citizen’ concerns to governments, advocate and monitor policies, and encourage political participation through provision of information. We distinguish different types of NGOs according to their activities: environment 4, health care5 , global security 6, development7 , or human

3 Human rights obligations (defined in national law, regional and international declarations, covenants and treaties) are addressed specifically to the states. 4 Environmental non-governmental organisations (ENGO) are NGOs active in the field of environmentalism. These are for example Greenpeace, World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) or Environmental Investigation Agency. 5 These are non-governmental organisations providing services ensuring international health (direct health care, community potable water, vitamin supplementation, any mitigation of endemic and epidemic infectious diseases and malnutrition); for example CARE, Doctors without Borders (Médecins sans frontieres) or Oxfam. 2

rights. The thesis will focus on individual work and mutual cooperation among human rights international and domestic NGOs.

 “Human rights advocates” are activists who individually or with others act to promote or protect human rights. The legitimacy of their activity has been officially recognized only in 1998 when the Declaration on the Right and Responsibility of Individuals, Groups and Organs of Society to Promote and Protect Universally Recognized Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms commonly known as a Declaration on Human Rights Defenders was adopted. Under the Declaration (1998), a human rights defender is anyone who works on the promotion and protection of human rights. I specifically focus on human rights NGOs. “Advocacy” is process by which groups or individuals aim to influence public policy within political, economic and social systems and institutions. I understand advocacy as any effort that aims at human rights issues and simultaneously takes action to ameliorate current situation.

 Domestic and international human rights advocates may act alone or they can create so- called “networks”. Margaret E. Keck and Kathryn Sikkink (1998: 1), defined the “transnational advocacy networks” as “…networks of activists, distinguishable largely by the centrality of principled ideas or values in motivating their formation”. These networks, composed of individuals, institutions and organisations share a core of values and ideas. They operate simultaneously at the transnational and domestic levels to build links between actors in states, civil society and non-governmental organisations. They multiply the channels of access to the international system, provide technical and financial resources and other support to emerging actors in various domestic struggles, and aspire to acquire an influence in the states and international organizations. By sharing the information about human rights abuses and mobilizing other advocates, they can create a pressure on norm violating sates. They represent one of the new composite actors who are responsible for the global political landscape change. While speaking about “human rights advocacy networks”, their central goal is, according to Risse et al. (1999), implementation and real recognition of human rights norms in respective states. Through a combination of the pressure exerted from below and from above (Brysk 1993, Keck and Sikkink 1998), human rights advocacy networks seek for human rights change. Risse et al. (1999) introduced the

6 NGOs that participate on dialogue to resolve security challenges while at the same time they create safe spaces for NGO personnel. 7 These are non-governmental organisations providing regional or international development aid or assistance. Their work overlaps the work of health care NGOs, these are e. g. Oxfam, CARE, HOPE International Development Agency or World Accord – International Development Agency. 3

spiral model theory to describe these processes.

I regard the advocacy as the twofold activity that stretches from the human rights promotion to the actual protection of the human rights in real-life abuses.

 “Human rights promotion” includes efforts of all international and domestic actors to strengthen and advocate human rights all around the world. It includes the activities such as human rights education, providing information, etc. (Welch 2001).

 “Human rights protection” means, according to international law of human rights, a protection of individuals and groups against violations by their governments (Buergenthal 1988). And it was traditionally perceived as an area, reserved solely to the state actors. In these days we register increasing number of non-state actors participating in the processes of human rights protection as well. Especially by their monitoring and control of state’s compliance with the human rights norms, direct assistance to the victims, etc. (Welch 2001).

 Finally “human rights”, defined in Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948), are moral principles that set out certain standards of human behaviour, and are regularly protected as legal rights in national and international law. They are conceived of as universal; they apply to all human beings worldwide; and as fundamental, referring to essential or basic human needs.

 The centre of my attention is dedicated to researching “freedom of expression”8. Despite the fact that freedom of expression is one of the first generation core fundamental rights, it is a typical relative human right. It is not regarded as an absolute command9 in any country and it is commonly subjected to various limitations. All in all this freedom encompasses both, an ability to express the opinions and ideas freely without censorship and any act of seeking, receiving and imparting information or ideas, regardless of the medium used. The freedom of expression is universally prescribed by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Its article 19 states that: "[e]veryone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers" (UDHR, 1948: Article 19). In addition to that the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights10 lays down that: “[e]veryone shall have the right to hold opinions without interference” and “…everyone shall have the right to freedom of expression; this right

8 The term “freedom of expression” is commonly used in Europe, while in the United States they refer to the same as “freedom of speech”. 9 For example a right to life. 10 Morocco ratified ICCPR in 1979. 4

shall include freedom to seek, receive and impart information and ideas of all kinds, regardless of frontiers, either orally, in writing or in print, in the form of art, or through any other media of his choice” (ICCPR 1976: Article 19).

1.2 RESEARCH QUESTIONS

I aspire to explore the role of NGOs in human rights advocacy in Morocco. Primarily I focus on their strategies and mutual cooperation. According to Risse et al. (1999) networking is a common practice of human rights advocates to ‘fight for human rights’ in the repressive States. With respect to my main thesis - if the state oppressions against the individual exercising his freedom of expression exist and if human rights advocates bounce the authorities back, networking is likely to occur - I ask following questions:

 Did Moroccan authorities sanction individuals exercising their freedom of expression?

 Did human rights advocates bounce the authorities back?

o What strategies did they apply?

o Why the advocates involved in particular cases and the strategies they implemented varied from case to case?

 Did the advocates create networks to respond to the sanctions?

o What conditions does networking depend on?

o Which advocates are likely to create networks and which are not?

o Are there any links between formation of network and strategies employed in a particular advocacy?

1.3 RESEARCH DESIGN & THE METHODS

To genuinely understand how the processes described above work in practice, I argue that the theoretical perspectives of the role of Moroccan human rights advocates are surely insufficient. That is why I worked on a detailed analysis of the role of transnational advocacy networks in practice. I followed the methodological rules as outlined below.

1.3.1 RESEARCH DESIGN

The practical part of the thesis consists of a qualitative research. Qualitative approach provides a thorough analysis of the processes of human rights promotion and protection and in-

5 depth understanding of the role of human rights advocates in these processes. Thanks to the method of qualitative research I could gain an insight into factual shortcomings of contemporary human rights situation in the country. I explored the causal mechanisms of human rights advocacy within the authentic drama. I studied the mandate and agenda of targeted NGOs, the means they use to achieve their goals, and the determinants of the cooperation between particular advocates - networking.

1.3.2 RESEARCH STRATEGY

To start with, I observed the Moroccan NGO advocates for the six months of my study stay in Rabat. I explored the politics on human rights in the country at the very beginning, and subsequently traced down the activities of the human rights advocates to gain first-hand knowledge about the promotion and protection of freedom of expression and the role of human rights advocates in its amelioration. Since I succeeded in enclosing the human rights advocates personally, I collected substantive documents such as the articles about the freedom of expression abuses, NGO’s position papers, NGO’s reports, mandates, NGO’s web pages, etc. These provide important background material. The key source of the data and information are rooted in the semi-structured interviews with the representatives of the research sample human rights advocates.

In my research I thus employ triangulation of data sources to develop better understanding of the role of human rights advocates in cases of freedom of expression oppressions in Morocco. I combine data collected from observation, document analysis and semi-structured interviews. According to Fielding and Fielding (1986) triangulation is the cornerstone on which a methodology to assess impact must be based and from which the qualitative methods are applied.

1.3.3 RESEARCH SAMPLE

I put the role of the three most important Moroccan human rights advocates: Moroccan Association of Human Rights (Association marocaine des droits humaines, here referred as AMDH), Moroccan Organisation for Human Rights (l’Organisation marocaine des droits de l’homme, here referred as OMDH), National Human Rights Council (Conseil National des Droits de l’Homme, here referred as CNDH) and the branch of International non-governmental organization in Morocco – Amnesty International Morocco under the light.

I chose them for several reasons. First of all, both AMDH and OMHD have a long

6 history in politics of human rights advocacy in Morocco (Naciri 1994, Saadi 2009). They were created in reaction to the unsatisfactory human rights situation 11 that was followed by the subsequent human rights socialization in 1970’s and 1980’s (Gränzer 1999). In Morocco, these are still considered to be the most important and relevant NGOs. AMDH is one of original - still active - human rights NGOs throughout the region (Rollinde 2002). Because the goal of my thesis is not to criticize, but more to explore, analyse and objectively evaluate, I did not stay only with non-governmental human rights advocates. I visited CNDH as well, the most important national human rights body, created by the King and connected to the Government. That allowed me to get both sides of the view on studied issue. Amnesty International is one of the most widespread human rights advocates in the world. It also played a crucial role in process of human rights amelioration in Morocco during 1990s (Gränzer 1999). Amnesty has been quite an active advocate in Morocco until these days. Its activities have international character. That provides a more comprehensive view. I chose Amnesty International from the practical reason as well. Unlike the Human Rights Watch for example, Amnesty International had its office in Rabat, so I had an opportunity to conduct face-to-face interview.

To divide and structure the findings of my terrain research I chose to use the 3-phase model (introduced by Scott Calnan 2008) and during my analysis I mainly focused on:

1. NGO’s agenda and mandate – how they are structured and organized;

2. NGO’s strategies – how they (aspire to) attain their goals;

3. The ways of these strategies’ implementations – with emphasis on mutual cooperation – networking.

I also spoke with the co-founder of the popular 20th February Movement12; here I refer to him as E. P. Last but not least I had the honour to conduct an interview with a victim of the authoritative sanctions – persecuted Moroccan journalist Ali Anouzla.

I deliberately did not include perspective of the authorities into my research. I had several reasons not to do so. First, since the Government is not a homogenous body, I could not retrieve any representative opinion13. I however did not overlook the Governments’ perspectives entirely. Second, inasmuch as I have included CNDH into my research sample, I inquired its perspective as a version of what the authorities think of freedom of expression. Third, I was strictly limited

11 Authoritative rule of the former Moroccan King Hassan II during the 1970s and 1980s, known as Years of Lead. 12 The group of civil activists, created in response to Arab Spring events in 20th February 2011; they fight for respect to human rights and further democratization in Morocco. 13 While gathering data I also encountered the fact that vast majority of Government materials was only published in Arabic. 7 by a range of my thesis. That is why I could not dedicate any further lines of my thesis to explaining variable perspectives of respective authorities.14

I do not aspire to evaluate the effectiveness of human rights advocates, I only refer to successes they had while pursuing their goal. If I had aspired to evaluate their work, I would have needed to consider the Government´s perspective of NGO´s advocacy activities as well.

I do not provide the whole names of interviewed persons for the two reasons. First, I did not analyse the individual opinions of the interviewed men and women, but the general positions and perspectives of the targeted15 organisations they work for. The respondents, besides the activist and the persecuted journalist, spoke on behalf of the NGOs they represent. Second reason was ethical. I do not want to cause the interviewees any trouble with respect to the publication of their attitudes and the attitudes of their parent NGOs.16 I therefore label the interviewees only with the help of artificial initials or simply identify their voice as a general stand of the respective NGO. Ali Anouzla allowed me to use his whole name in the thesis.

To define relevant time period, I studied the role of human rights advocates from year 2011, i.e. after the Arab Spring events17 and the adoption of the new Constitution18 - until these days.

1.3.4 DATA COLLECTION

Table A. Data Collection Matrix Observation Interview Documents Domestic NGOs: AMDH ✓ ✓ ✓ CNDH ✓ ✓ ✓ OMDH ✓ ✓ ✓ MALI ✓ International NGOs: AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL MOROCCO ✓ ✓ ✓ HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH ✓ HR ACTIVIST (E.P.) ✓ ✓ ✓ VICTIM (ALI ANOUZLA) ✓ ✓ ✓ GOVERNMENT ✓

14 Even to select actors who could acquaint me with their perspectives was complicated. 15 I refer to the research sample NGOs as targeted NGOs. 16 Some of the interviewees even asked me not to air their names public. 17 According to Van Hüllen (2013) Arab Spring events have brought change of the political landscape in North African and Arab states. I thus do not study in detail the role of human rights advocates before Arab Spring. 18 The adoption of the Constitution in July 2011 has been seen as a step towards observance of human rights in Morocco. Therefore I solely focus on the events after adoption of this Constitution. 8

Themes

 Human rights situation in Morocco, with emphasis on freedom of expression.  Recent cases of freedom of expression oppressions.  Reaction to these cases – domestic, international human rights advocates.  The human rights advocates’ strategies.  Mutual cooperation of individual advocates – advocacy networks.

1.3.5 CONCEPTUALISATION AND OPERATIONALISATION

To analyse the data collected in the field research and to discuss the relevant findings, the crucial concepts have to be outlined. I have therefore put forward the operationalization of relevant variables, too.

Key Variables

As “freedom of expression oppressions” I understand all governmental activities that conflict with the protection of freedom of expression defined in domestic and international treaties and documents. These are for example prohibition of further exercise of the freedom of expression; a fine; further administrative proceedings against the individual that exercised his freedom of expression; and a criminal charge and sentence against the individual (arrest, detention and prison time, etc.)

The “NGO’s activities”19 of both, international and domestic NGOs depends on the following variables:

 An agenda placement of particular NGO. It is important to differ between the NGOs that are concerned with freedom of expression - these are human rights advocates I will focus on, and the other human rights advocates that are not concerned with the quality of freedom of expression in the country. There exist the other NGOs that deal with completely different issues (non-human rights topics), too. I looked up the NGOs that have either the general human rights agenda or the NGOs that specialize on the promotion and protection of the freedom of expression. These NGOs form my research sample (see above).

 NGO activities do not depend only on their agendas, but also on a quality of their mandate. NGO’s mandate may be laid down extensively, it means that the NGO uses all

19 As NGO’s activities I consider both, NGO´s decision to involve in concrete case, as well as the selection of its strategies. The list of the NGO´s strategies is provided in Table B and Table C below. 9

available means to achieve its goals; or their mandate might be restricted. In such cases the scope of their activities may be limited to only certain types of activities that serve a goal of their mission. In addition to that I have set three factors that influence a quality of their mandate. These are:

 First, it is NGO membership. It is important to distinguish between elitist and mass NGOs. Beyond qualities of individual NGO members, the quantity of such members influence the strategies a particular NGO adopts.

 Second, I focus on a level of independence of targeted NGO. I aspire to find out whether a level of independence or an affiliation of a particular NGO with authorities have an impact on strategies these NGOs apply.

 Thirdly, I reckon that it is important to take into account the territorial scope of NGO activities.

With respect to these first institutional qualities of the sampled NGOs, I would like to stress that there is a great variety of both, different agendas and NGOs mandates. But specification of the agenda and mandate of a particular NGO, however, does not reveal the nature of its real activities and a level of mutual cooperation with the other advocates. Therefore I point to other independent variables that influence the NGO’s promotion and protection activities on a particular case.

 At the individual level it is the content of the message that was publicly unveiled by persecuted individual. A) Individuals may be critical towards the practices of the authorities; B) they may question one of the nationally shared ideas about the public taboos20, C) the message may curb the rights of the other individual, or D) the message did not fall within the limits of the lawful expression.

 At the State level I consider kind and severity of the actual punitive measure, the way Government reacts on the exercise of freedom of expression, to be a key variable, which influence NGOs’ activities. A) Light: for example prohibition of the further exercise of the freedom of expression or a fine; B) moderate: further administrative proceedings against the individual that exercised his/her freedom of expression; and C) grave punishment: a criminal charge and sentence against the individual - arrest, detention and prison time, etc.

20 In Moroccan context these are sanctity of monarchy, religion (Islam) and territorial integrity (the Western Sahara issue). 10

With respect to the last concept – “networking”, I aspire to explore whether it was triggered, what conditions does it depend on, etc. (see section 1.2 above).

1.3.5 RESEARCH OUTPUT

I expect, that the findings, obtained in field research, will enable me to study NGOs role in human rights advocacy in Morocco. How they react on the freedom of expression oppressions, what strategies do they use and if they cooperate with each other.21

Since I retrieved my results with the help of qualitative methods, I do not stand to claim that neither my findings nor my discussion draw any general conclusions. Any of the generalisations I provide could only be applied to a small research sample of the human rights advocates I studied, but not to the whole spectrum of advocates that exist in Morocco or anywhere else. If anyone would try to generalize these, he or she would need to work on supplementary research to verify or falsify my findings.

1.4 THESIS OUTLINE

I outlined my thesis into four main parts. First part provides short introduction to the issue studied in the thesis. After the brief research setting, I define the main terms used in the thesis and then focus on my research questions and methodology. The second part deals with the short theoretical overview, and introduces the readers to following two practical parts. In the third part, I present the findings retrieved within the research. In the fourth part I provide the general discussion over the revealed findings. At the end of the thesis I conclude all my findings and provide possible suggestions for further research in the field.

1.5 PRIME SOURCES OF INSPIRATION

While developing my concept, I let myself inspired by a the 1999 book Power of Human Rights: International Norms and Domestic Change, where Risse and his colleagues introduced their view on the role of human rights advocates - the spiral model theory. They brought some new perspectives on these issues in their recent 2013 book The Persistent Power of Human Rights: From Commitment to Compliance. In both books they analysed human rights situation in Morocco, the first one focused on the historical role of human rights advocates, while the latter one focused on

21 Cooperation between human rights advocates and the creation of transnational advocacy networks might be crucial for their efficiency and successes in the improvements of human rights situation in Morocco. I, however, did not have enough research experience, time and space to research the actual effects of the NGOs activities on the governmental policies on the freedom of expression in Morocco.

11 recent developments in the country. The other authors, whose theories, ideas and approaches I used in the thesis, are for example Keck and Sikkink who wrote Activists beyond borders: Advocacy Networks in International Politics (1998), Philip Alston’s Non-state actors and Human Rights (2005), or Scott Calnan’s The Effectiveness of Domestic Human Rights NGOs: A Comparative study (first published in 2008). All of these books deal with the role of the non-state actors in human rights discourse. I was also inspired by Donnelly, who developed theory of relative universality of human rights, and introduced it in his book The relative universality of HR (2003) and by Claude Welch, whose list of NGO practices presented in 2001 book NGOs and Human Rights: Promise and Performance, inspired me to focus on the NGO tactics and strategies. To provide an overview of the human rights situation in Morocco, I appropriated the findings of Susan Waltz in 1995 book Human Rights and Reform: Changing the Face of North African Politics, Lise Storm’s findings from 2010 book Democratisation in Morocco. The political elite and struggles for power in the post-independent state and 2009 book by Moroccan author Mohamed Saadi Le Difficile chemin des droits de l’homme au Maroc: du déni a la reconnaissance.

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2 THEORETICAL BACKGROUND

2.1 HUMAN RIGHTS AND INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS

Human rights, as we understand them these days, are the product of the 17th and 18th century, the period of European Enlightenment. The 21st century understanding of human rights is clearly embedded in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights22. Its thirty articles establish a common understanding of ideas and expectations about the relationship between governments and citizens and about the socioeconomic basis of human dignity. Two major general treaties followed the Declaration, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights (ICESCR). These proclaim further rights of full participation in the political processes and elevate basic welfare needs to the status of rights. The roots of the Declaration and the Covenants lie in the Western tradition. The tricky question is whether these pronounce human rights that are universally applicable worldwide or whether these are culturally relative. Hence culture-based approximation of rights and freedoms continues to resonate within the international politics and international human rights law.

According to Donnelly (2007) international human rights are usually presented as universal rights; mainly because they arise from the international human rights law. Donnelly, however, emphasizes that interpretation and theoretical universality of these rights are dependent on sovereign states. This fact then makes the universal international human rights relative to the will of a particular state. In line with Donnelly, other constructivist international relations scholars (Keck and Sikkink 1998, Risse et al. 1999, Gregg 2013), understand the human rights discourse as context-dependent and socially constructed. They stress the importance of the social context for the adoption, implementation and further respect of human rights standards. The conflict between western human rights norms and Muslim heritage, specifically the Sharia tradition of law in Morocco is specifically the case. According to Waltz (1995: 19), Islamic thoughts about human rights were developed strictly through deductive reasoning and as such stand in fundamental contrast to the Western traditions.23

The concept of human rights is often framed as a moral issue, fostering humanitarian and/or idealistic interests. But according to Susan Waltz (1995), human rights became increasingly related to the world of politics and to the game of security and struggle for the world

22 UDHR was adopted by the UN General Assembly on 10th December 1948. 23 Nowadays it is less and less the case, for example, pursuant Sharia slavery is permitted, but the governments that adopted Islamic law prohibit it today. The same is the case of forced marriages, it is permitted in Sharia, but it was eliminated in the 1981 Universal Islamic Declaration of Human Rights its article 19 states that no one should be married against his or her own will (Waltz, 1995: 19). 13 power. Therefore, the human rights discourse acquired a considerable political weight as well. On that account, human rights activists – advocates, established their moral mission to enhance the operating rules, enter a political debate and lastly struggle to get recognized in a game of national politics. Hence, they are considered the political actors who while struggling for the amelioration of human rights enforcement, seek, promote and assert major political, cultural and social reforms (Waltz 1995).

Human rights have traditionally had a vertical structure, establishing rights for the individuals and obligations to the states. Therefore the states play a central role in both, human rights protection and oppressions against individual human rights. They play a double role – on one hand the State should be a prime human rights protector 24 , on the other, the state is traditionally seen as a prime only human rights perpetrator who exercises the power and ability to breach its citizen’s rights. Recent theoretical approaches, however, seem to reorient human rights law to the horizontal relationships between the solely private actors as well. They perceive human rights’ norms as the general imperatives that impact whole variety of actors (Knox 2007).

Human rights advocates 25 complement and stand in for the State that does not implement human rights norms; that does not comply with them; or is ineffective in overseeing the adequate standards for the exercise of these fundamental rights. In some cases human rights advocates blacken the name of the State or the responsible authorities for insufficient governance over the exercise of individual rights or for the State-caused exploitations of the otherwise guaranteed human rights. That being the case, the human rights advocates push through the higher standards of human rights obligations, seeking the human rights protection and acting as a ‘watchdogs’26 all around the world. With the help of some states and at the expense of the other, these human rights advocates strive to ensure the human rights compliance in the jurisdictions they operate in. They use a broad spectrum of practices and cooperate with the states and also between each other (see e.g. Keck and Sikkink, 1998, Risse et al. 1999, Risse et al. 2013).

24 The State should guarantee the rights of individual citizens. 25 Mostly the international organisations, NGOs, INGOs, and civil society actors. 26 They monitor observance of human rights, of the State’s compliance with the human rights standards. 14

2.2 HUMAN RIGHTS NGOs AND WORLD POLITICS

“NGOs help to identify and prioritize key human rights issues, highlight the imperfections of human rights implementation process, draw attention to human rights abuses, notify the emergency situations and address a wide range of previously unrecognized problems, like violence against women. The active work of NGOs has led to the situation that most human rights questions are included in national and international agendas and the new human rights documents (national, regional and international) are initiated. The active advocacy of human rights NGOs provides the opportunities to develop a culture of human rights protection. They also contribute to creating a better society, raising the world consciousness about human rights and, most importantly, they help to translate the formal promises of governments for better human rights protection into actual reality and thus give opportunities for individuals to fully enjoy their internationally recognized human rights standard.” (Marcinkuté, 2011: 59).

Since the World Conference on Human Rights in Vienna in 1993, where hundreds of human rights and development NGOs from all around the world, side by side with the Governments, dozens of UN bodies, the specialized agencies and other intergovernmental organisations, participated on intense dialogues to find a common plan for the strengthening of the human rights universal framework; human rights NGOs have become the legitimate and respectable contributors to the respective diplomatic discourse.27 The Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action (1993), inter alia stressed the “…important role of NGOs in promotion of all human rights and in humanitarian activities at national, regional and international levels …to the protection of all human rights and fundamental freedoms “.

Rubichon (2007) asserts the importance of the mutual relationship, dialogue and cooperation in the human rights matters, between the states and NGOs. She concludes that in today´s globalized and interconnected world, both the States and NGOs need each other. Forsythe elaborates on this argument. He points out that the States and inter-governmental agencies depend on NGOs and vice versa. He concludes that “[a]s much as NGOs need states – to arrest war criminals, to provide food and tents and sometimes physical protection for relief, to provide capital and cooperation for development – states need NGOs for a variety of ideas and services” (Forsythe 2006: 215). According to Marcinkuté (2011: 62) effective advocacy always requires a positive relationship between the NGOs and governments.28 According to Waltz (1995: 11-12), human rights NGOs have become, side by side with the governments, political players of critical importance precisely because their single goal is to see the rules of the political game rewritten.

It is important to mention, that the work of the human rights advocates and the consequences of their activities do not bear only positive impacts. Marcinkuté (2011) stresses, that the human rights advocates’ job might be a risky business with unexpected ends, as well. In

27 The Conference was held by the United Nations and it was the first human rights conference since the end of the Cold War. The Conference was attended by representatives of 171 nations and 800 NGOs, with approximately 7000 participants. More information available at: http://www.ohchr.org/EN/ABOUTUS/Pages/ViennaWC.aspx. 28 In contrast to that, if the government governs with a strong hand, NGOs can scarcely achieve their goals. 15 some cases the activities of human rights NGOs may have a negative effect on human rights, or sometimes these may even be associated with further human rights violations. For example, pushing the States to sign and accept international human rights treaties may lead to an effective contrary to what was expected. After the signature and ratification of the human rights treaties, some authoritarian regimes may intensify their human rights abuses; they do not fear international pressure anymore (Neumayer 2005). NGOs may also allegedly jeopardise a state sovereignty, which in turn makes the States potentially discontent (Marcinkuté 2011). Others criticise the NGO’s performance for the lack of accountability, representation, legitimacy, and in some cases their political profiling (see Kuchinsky 2011: 419).

The other threat is the wrongful image of the NGOs. The NGOs that operate in less developed non-Western countries are regularly regarded as the quasi-altruistic institutions. Although they claim that they protect human rights, they might be seen only as a tool to spread influence and maximize power of the western world (Marcinkuté 2011: 60).

2.2.1 THEORETICAL DEBATE

International relations’ scholars bring quite a few explanations of relationships between the States, and the non-state actors within the human rights discourse.

In terms of realism, that has for years been a leading theoretical approach in the study of international relations, it is understood that the world is composed from the categories of power and structure in the international system. The realism is based on two presumptions, first the system of international relations is anarchic and second the most significant player in this system is a sovereign State (Müller 2005: 39). From the realist point of view, the Government conforms to human rights norms only when it is in its self-interest. It is difficult to examine the importance of the non-state actors by relying only on realists’ theories, because realists, focusing primarily on the States, leave very little room for the analysis of NGO’s impact on the global order (Kuchinsky 2011: 416). While realists stress the importance of power politics and assume that the States do whatever they want unless they are forced to undertake certain steps, liberalists, on the other hand, believe that “…what states want is the primary determinant of what they do” (Moravcsik 1997: 521). Liberalists believe in striving for maximal freedom, enhance the general progress, international cooperation and the spread of democratic ideals and views (Blažek 2005: 44-45). Liberalism highlights the importance of global norms and human rights in international relations (Kuchinsky 2011: 416). They regard the human rights treaties as a tool of international and domestic political survival.

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Both realist and liberalist approaches, are so-called actor-driven29, they consider actors (States) ontologically rooted, and assume that their actions are guided by their own interests and rational reasons. During the late 1980s, a couple of new approaches have emerged in the international politics research.30 Unlike realism and liberalism, these approaches take into account the institutions and the structures as new factually constituted variables. Neo-institutionalism emphasizes not only that organisational structures and behaviours are shaped by the prevalent political ideas and social norms, but it also counts the non-state actors in researching the international arena (Miller 2011: 27). Constructivists, similarly to neo-institutionalists, stress the search for legitimacy as a main behavioural motive of institutional actors. Simultaneously they emphasize the role of international and domestic organisations and non-governmental actors in facilitating normative change. Constructivist theories are based on the ideals (Hynek 2005: 136). They highlight moral strength of universal human rights ideas and norms. Constructivists accommodate the work of NGOs because the international system is not fixed in move-less space. The constructivism may thus contextualises a wide range of issues and activities of NGOs (Kuchinsky 2011: 416). For constructivists the norms diffusion is not a smooth process; instead it is a contested process, a process that in order to preserve its internal inertia must be constantly and actively pushed and pulled by various social actors such as human rights advocates (Keck and Sikkink 1998; Risse et al. 1999).

Regarding the theoretical overview provided above, I accommodate the ideas from a constructivist perspective. I see human rights advocates and their cooperation (transnational advocacy networks) as important non-state actors, who pursue implementation of norms, human rights socialisation, consequent monitoring and who bounce the authorities back if they abuse human rights.

2.2.2 NGOs’ STRATEGIES

Since human rights NGOs have earned considerable power, many scholars have asked the questions such as how these human rights advocates influence world politics? What strategies do they use to achieve their ends? How do they use them? Sikkink (1993) reckons that NGOs operate as an agent with several capacities. They bridge across quite a few levels of society. They primarily hook together different social groups (or populations), secondly they intermingle various public topics and lastly in order to facilitate further amelioration, they trigger and intensify networks of human rights

29 Even if current liberalism recognized actors different from the State (from international organisations, through non-governmental organisations to the transnational corporations), it still stressed a leading role of the states. 30 Theories that consider non-state actors as important actors in international politics are, for example, theory of complex global interdependence, turbulence theories, regime theories, theories of epistemic communities, etc. 17 agents created locally and globally. On that account, NGOs operate as the facilitators, negotiators, advocates, and sometimes a catalyst for program development and social change. NGOs assert their agenda within the UN agencies; they infiltrate and lobby within the national Governments and other public authorities; they promote and protect the grassroots communities; advertise the pressing topics and urge for various improvements transnationally (Kuchinsky 2011: 418).

To measure general value added by NGO’s is nearly incomprehensible, but Freeman concludes that: “…nearly everyone familiar with human rights politics acknowledges their [NGO] influence, including many governments whom they have criticized, and this suggests that the influence is significant” (Freeman 2011: 170). Welch (2001) accents that human rights NGOs have concentrated their efforts in a couple of crucial areas: firstly through drafting of new human rights instruments, and through the follow-up negotiations, they seek to establish international standards of human rights abiding behaviour. Secondly, they monitor the State’s behaviour, investigate and gather information, they report individual human rights abuses (informing the media, other Governments, etc.), and thirdly they occasionally offer direct assistance to the victims of these abuses. They also mobilize public opinion and while using so called naming and shaming strategies they can mobilize public shame. Last but not least they lobby political authorities, corporations, international financial institutions, international organizations, and invest a considerable effort in the media that broadcast their discourse to wider societies. They also organize peaceful demonstrations31. With respect to severe abuses of human rights they carry out boycotts. As the number of active human rights advocates steadily grows, the range of their activities expands as well. For example some of the human rights NGOs provide services such as human rights education, and courses or trainings to help to increase public awareness of human rights.

With regard to the previous theoretical overview I have detected following NGO’s practices, and for the purpose of my research have divided them into 2 logically consistent phases as listed below.

31 See for example Mahatma Gandhi – nonviolent resistance. 18

Table B. NGO’s Practices32 Phase Type Of Ngo Activity I. - Co-drafting the human rights law instruments (treaties, Effort towards the establishment of human declarations, statutes, etc.) and co-negotiating the terms of rights norms and subsequent monitoring of these instruments human rights obedience - Human rights education - Human rights monitoring II. - Investigation (gathering information, fact finding, etc.) Reaction to individual and concrete abuses - Publishing regular and specific reports of human rights - Direct assistance to the victims of human rights abuses - Mobilising public opinion and mobilising public shame - Lobbying - Organizing peaceful demonstrations - Organizing boycotts

Whereas the first phase of NGOs practices was acquainted to provide general overview of NGO’s activities, the second phase tasks serve as a hermeneutical pre-understanding of the NGO’s strategies and tactics in case the individual’s human rights are exploited or other intolerable injustice takes place.

To be able to distinguish individual strategies, I provide a short qualification of each of the strategies of the NGO’s that backfire if the Government imposes undesirable limits on freedom of expression.

32 While creating this table I let myself be inspired by Welch (2001) and Marcinkuté (2011). 19

Table C. The List of NGO’s Strategies33 Investigation Collecting information that concerns a given case. It regularly takes place at the very beginning of the case work. Evaluating the severity of the case, investigating potential scenarios and selecting the strategies that might come helpful to meet a pursued goal. Publishing regular and specific reports Published on the basis of previous investigation, these are the annual reports that usually provide a general overview on human rights situation within the State and offer concrete suggestions for its amelioration. The other reports commonly provide concrete case studies or evaluate the compliance to a particular kind of a human rights. NGOs routinely express their opinions, ideas and recommendations. Direct assistance Only some NGOs and only in certain areas34 do they assist the victims directly. Mobilising public opinion Public opinion mobilisation accords are one of the most important and the most commonly used strategies. The NGOs broadcast particular case information to foster public opinion about the issue and the case. NGOs try to trigger public awareness. Mobilising public shame In cases of severe human rights abuses, NGOs may use the naming and shaming strategies. The procedures are similar as in cases of mobilisation of public opinion, but exemplified. By naming of the authoritative punishment, the NGOs seek to mobilize public shame35 to press the Government to pay (positive) attention to its human rights politics. Lobbying NGOs may lobby the Government, public authorities, other local, regional or international governmental and non-governmental organisations. Organising peaceful demonstrations Since the ceasefire of the Arab Spring events, peaceful demonstrations became a useful and successful means to express the ideas, foster public opinion and demand the factual change of the politics. Some NGOs organise public demonstrations, the others don’t. Organising boycotts Boycotts, raids and other violent manifestations are organized only if the extremely severe abuses could not be communicated in a different strategy. This tactic is the last resort.

Risse et al. (1999) contends that as much as the particular State cares about its international image, it responds to pressures from below and from above created by human rights advocacy networks urging for human rights conformity (Brysk 1993, Keck and Sikkink 1998). Building on this argument, I suppose that the mobilisation of public opinion and mobilisation of public shame are the most commonly used tactics to push through a reaction to freedom of expression oppressions in Morocco.

Human rights advocates may apply all these practices, unaccompanied or one in conjunction with the other. The NGOs are usually not able to make their point alone. Therefore to reach the goal they cooperate with the other human rights advocates. The mutual cooperation of the human rights advocates is referred as networking. Regular cooperation between the NGOs resulted in a creation of the transnational human rights advocacy networks (Keck and Sikkink 1998).

33 While creating this table I let myself be inspired by Welch (2001) and Marcinkuté (2011). 34 E.g. visiting the prisoners, providing the legal consulting. 35 Not only within the State of abuse, but also beyond its borders. 20

2.2.3 NETWORKING

Many scholars believe that the mutual cooperation of the domestic and international actors is a precondition to the successful human rights socialization (Keck and Sikkink 1998; Risse et al. 1999; Risse et al. 2013). Keck and Sikkink (1998) invented the boomerang model. The boomerang pattern is a model of advocacy where State A causes ‘blockage’ by not protecting or violating rights. Domestic NGOs then communicate information about the blockage to other NGOs from State B and those non-state actors inform the State B. With respect to the obtained information State B puts pressure on State A to change its policies. Potentially State B has intergovernmental organizations established and puts a pressure on State A through these institutions.

Inspired by the boomerang model Risse et al. (1999) introduced the spiral model. Domestic and transnational human rights movements and networks unite to bring pressure from above and from below to accomplish human rights change. The mutual cooperation of human rights advocates and creation of these, so called human rights advocacy networks, raises their power, efficiency and influence. The more these pressures can be sustained, the fewer options are available to political rulers to continue their exploiting politics. Spiral model is a five-phase model of human rights genesis.

 First phase: In this phase model it suspects the existence of State repression. Domestic opposition to an abusing Government is too weak to challenge it. In such cases the domestic advocates ask for help abroad and therefore activate a network.

 Second phase: The norm-violating State is recorded within the agenda of the international human rights networks. Hence, a level of international public attention towards this ‘target State’ rises. The target State commonly denies the failure it is suspected to have caused.36

 Third phase: If domestic pressure from below supported by the international pressure from above continues and escalates, the Government of such State seeks to bring forward minor changes to its policies to pacify international criticism.37 These are so-called tactical concessions to sidestep from the prime end.

36 The State refuses to accept the validity of international human rights norms themselves and it opposes the suggestion that its national practices in the area are subject to international jurisdiction. 37 This is mainly seen as a temporary situation improvement. 21

 Forth phase: The norm-violating Government accepts some of human rights norms it absorbed, and moves on to the prescriptive status. The Governments within the prescriptive status are the ones that accept the validity of particular human rights norms.

 Final phase: They can then reach the final phase i.e. rule-consistent behaviour.

The process from third to the final phase is considered as a processes leading from commitment to compliance (Risse et al. 2013: 9). Commitment is a phase when “…actors accept international human rights as valid and binding for themselves”. Compliance is defined as “…sustained behaviour and domestic practices that conform to the international human rights norms” (Risse et al. 2013: 10). According to Van Hüllen (2013) it was not until 2010 when Morocco slowly moved from commitment to compliance. I reckon that Morocco generally complies with its human rights obligations, but its compliance is surely not absolute, the abuses of certain human rights infrequently occur.

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3 FINDINGS

While I shed some theoretical light on the matter in the previous chapter, I bring you some raw results of my qualitative research of human rights advocacy in this chapter. With respect to the research questions I have posed at the beginning of the thesis and established on the arguments I already proposed, I conducted my inquiry in Morocco. To introduce the results of my fieldwork, I divided this chapter into four constitutive sections. At first I briefly introduce history, politics, human rights conditions and respective recent developments in Morocco. Secondly I present the perspective of human rights advocates on current human rights situations in Morocco. Following that I proceed to the third section. I describe the role of targeted human rights NGOs38, with emphasis on their agenda, mandate and strategies they use in cases of the oppressions of freedom of expression in the country. The final section is dedicated to the mutual cooperation of individual advocates. I label this quality of networking in practice.

3.1 MOROCCO & HUMAN RIGHTS

“One of the weaknesses of the regime in Morocco, as in the most authoritarian regimes, is its image abroad. So it always tries to present itself as a democratic, liberal regime, open to the values of freedom, democracy, and pluralism, while respecting human rights, guaranteeing freedom of the press, and protecting freedom of expression”(Ali Anouzla39)

The Kingdom of Morocco is an Arabic-speaking Islamic constitutional monarchy located in North Africa. It was not until 1956 when the Moroccans won their independence from the French colonial rule. Mohammed VI, current Moroccan monarch, is not only a king, but he rules over one of the world´s oldest monarchies as Sharif40, descendant of the Prophet, and as a Commander of the Faithful (Amir al-Mu´minin). He is also equipped with extensive legislative powers.41

With respect to the human rights situation in Morocco, all interviewed human rights advocates, have agreed, that there are some visible improvements to the human rights situation, especially during the past 20 years, sharing two decisive factors. First, it is a major change to the governance caused by the accession of the new King to the throne in 1999. Second factor, the Arab Spring events held from 2011 brought some significant changes to the political landscape of North

38 Human rights advocates I chose to study. 39 Ali Anouzla proclaimed this in the interview for the online journal Sada. Available online at: http://carnegieendowment.org/sada/2014/02/20/interview-with-moroccan-journalist-ali-anouzla/h1e1. 40 Sharif is a traditional Arab title meaning „noble“, „highborn“. 41 Although Moroccan Constitution provides for a separation of the executive, legislative and judicial powers, there is no real division in practice (Gränzer 1999: 117). 23

Africa and Middle East. In Moroccan context, these events were followed by the adoption of the new Constitution and parliamentary elections in 2011. The Constitution is generally seen as a tool that influenced Moroccan political situation positively. Hand in hand with that, human rights and freedoms were ameliorated as well.

I consider it important to mention, that none of the respondents were wholly satisfied with the current human rights situation in the country. However, their views, regarding freedom of expression, differ in certain respects.

3.1.1 YEARS OF LEAD, DARK AGE FOR HUMAN RIGHTS

Van Hüllen assert that a post-colonial Moroccan regime “reacted with repression to growing socio-economic and political challenges, including systematic violations of human rights” (Van Hüllen 2013: 183). Human rights activism in Morocco emerged during the 1970s, during the so-called Years of Lead. That was a period of the authoritative rule of the former King Hassan II (Saadi 2009). Amnesty International Morocco (2014) described the period of the Hassan II’s rule as a ‘dark past’ of Moroccan history. It is commonly known that during that time most of the worst human rights abuses took place. Repressive state politics also created and strengthened the idea of the need of human rights advocates. Talking about the human rights situation during the 1970s and 1980s, OMDH (2014) characterized the rule of Hassan II as a ‘dictatorial regime’ where rights and freedoms were neither recognized, nor respected. The independent journals were allegedly forbidden and journalists were persecuted for expressing their separate opinions. It was impossible to create associations that viewed the reality differently than the regime’s ones. Moroccan citizens lived in a ‘state of emergency’, in an ‘absolute despotism’.

The repressive regime, naturally, didn’t allow the independent NGOs to be created. The first Moroccan human rights organisations that could legally be constituted during the 1970s and 1980s; these had to be in some way connected to the regime.42 For example, the first Moroccan human rights NGO, Moroccan League for the Defence of Human Rights (La League Marocaine pour la Defense des Droits de l’Homme - LMDDH) was founded in 1972 with the support of Istiqlal political party 43 . In contrast to that, the Moroccan Organisation for Human Rights (Organisation

42 It might have been political parties, trade unions or authorities. 43 In other words, Independence party is a conservative and monarchist political party (centre-right). It is the second largest party in the Parliament. Founded in 1940s, it held strongly nationalist views, it is proponent of “Greater Morocco” – Morocco´s independence will not be complete without the liberation of all the territories which once used to be part of Morocco (Western Sahara issue). Its key goals are: the Islamic state, constitutional monarchy, the safeguarding of Moroccan´s cultural identity, social equality and economic development. 24

Marocaine des droits de l’homme - OMDH) after several interdictions in 1980s44 had to wait over for years until its formation was authorized and legally recognized. This happened in 1990 (OMDH 2014). It is considered to be the first politically independent Moroccan NGO (Waltz, 1995: 11). Moroccan Association of Human Rights (Association Marocaine des Droits Humaines – AMHD) was formed in 1979, and linked to the USFP political party45; its activities were ceased by the regime repressions at the beginning of the 1980s. AMHD was officially formed again in the 1990s; when the regime allowed them to operate. Amnesty International officially opened its local section in Morocco in 1995. It however claims that its mission commenced way before that, in the 1970s and 1980s. It could not legally exist until that time. Since the potential members could not openly work on human rights issues, they at least secretly debated the topics and worked on secret campaigns (Rollinde 2002).

According to Van Hüllen (2013) Moroccan human rights organisations were engaged in transnational human rights networks from the day they were born. Due to regime’s human rights abuses, they put forward waves of international pressure on the Government. This pressure, urging the regime’s respect on human rights, grew stronger from the beginning of 1990s. Moroccan King Hassan II formally committed to international human rights standards by adopting “an official discourse on human rights protection and democratization, and implemented legal and institutional reforms superficially suggesting a prescriptive status of human rights” (Van Hüllen 2013: 184- 185). In order to show the respect for political rights and freedoms and to “reinforce and consolidate the rule of law and the institution-based State” the Advisory Council on Human Rights (Conseil Consultatif des Droits de l’Homme – CCDH) was established.46 CNDH (2014) defines last years of the King Hassan II’s rule, as ‘eve of political changeover’ in Morocco. The emergence of NGOs implied slow and steady decline of Hassan II’s authoritarian regime (Storm 2010).

44 OMDH was banned three times - on 28 May, 25 June and 24 September 1988 (OMDH 2012). 45 It is Socialist Union of Popular Forces (Union Socialist des Forces Populaires - USFP), social democratic Moroccan political party. Organized in 1974 as the result of a split in the National Union of Popular Forces (Waltz, 1995: 113). USFP seeks its ideas from the left, mainly on issues of social justice and the fight against inequality. 46 Advisory council was replaced in 2011 by the National Human Rights Council (Conseil National des Droits de l´Homme - CNDH). CNDH is one of the samples of my research as well. 25

3.1.2 TOWARDS THE BETTER TOMORROWS

Visible advances with respect to human rights were, however, evident when Hassan II’s son Mohammed VI acceded the throne in 1999. According to Campbell (2003), a succession of Mohammed VI was celebrated as the advent of a new era for democracy and human rights in the country. Van Hüllen commented on changes that occurred after Mohammed VI acceded the throne.

“[International community] clearly appreciated the reform efforts of the Moroccan regime that readily cooperated with state and non-state actors on human rights and political issues. The regime was open to dialogue with civil society: it has hosted a range of workshops and conferences with domestic and transnational human rights organisations over the years and has jointly implemented projects with AI. International actors such as European Union (EU) have directly supported domestic reform initiatives through financial assistance…Moroccan regime has actively cooperated with domestic and international actors, including human rights organisations and democracy promoters, and made their criticisms and demands part of its own agenda for reform” (Van Hüllen 2013: 188-191).

All of my respondents agreed that unlike his father, current King Mohammed VI embraced human rights with due respect. He had launched quite a few reforms47 that enhanced human rights significantly.

The Arab Spring events that started in Tunisia and Egypt and quite quickly spread to other Arab countries triggered a wave of demonstrations across the whole region of North Africa and the Middle East. Protesting people had their own goals and demands in each country.48 In Morocco the manifestations were led by the 20th February Movement49, a youth movement pursuing a radical political and social change. To cease the demonstration, the King immediately began the negotiations with the opposition.50 As a result of the bargaining, the new modern Constitution was drafted and adopted. All interviewees claimed that despite 2011 Constitutional guarantees, some former repressive laws are still in force.

47 First of all Mohammed VI established Equity and Reconciliation Commission (Instance Equité et Réconciliation - IER), the institution that should have inquire human rights violations under Hassan II rule. Another important step forward was the reform of family code - Mudawana launched in 2004. 48 In the opinion of E. P. (2014) common factors that led to the emergence of the movements all around the region were at the beginning the same - unsatisfied political, social and economic conditions. 49 „This movement was born in a wake of the Arab spring and used especially information networks (Facebook) as a platform for spreading its ideas, grouping its members and organizing events. From the official release: call for a democratic constitution passed by a democratically elected constituent assembly; the dissolution of parliament and the dismissal of the current government and the establishment of a transitional government in charge of initiating the claims of the February 20th movement; an independent judiciary and more general separation of powers; the trial of all those involved in looting, mismanagement and squandering the country's wealth; the recognition of the Amazigh language as an official language like Arabic , as well as recognition of the specificities of the Moroccan identity in its essential elements: linguistic, cultural and historical; the release of all political prisoners and judicial proceeding to all those responsible for arbitrary arrests, "disappearances", torture and repression. These are necessary conditions for the Moroccan people to access genuine democracy and citizenship in order to become sole master of his fate and can: integration of unemployed graduates at all levels of the public service and by competition with transparency and fairness; ensure worthy to everyone fighting for dear life against life. The increase in wages and the minimum wage; ensure access of the poor to public services worthy of this name and have the means to enable them to fulfil their missions” (Motto from the Facebook page of the 20th February movement, translated from French). 50 I.e. the popular 20th February Movement. 26

3.1.3 CONSTITUTION(s) AND INTERNATIONAL TREATIES

It was not until 1962, when the first Moroccan Constitution was adopted. 51 It stated that the King retains virtually all significant powers, so he may promulgate law, appoint the prime minister and dismiss the Government, dissolve the Parliament, suspend the Constitution, and bypass the Parliament with constitutional amendments (Constitution 1962). It was forbidden by law to publish an article offensive to the King and the Royal family, and it is illegal to inquire into royal finances. Criticism and public debate are permitted – and arguably, encouraged – so long as they did not explicitly nor implicitly contest the monarchy, Islam, territorial integrity, or the King. As a practical consequence, these topics are still political and social taboos (Waltz 1995: 121).

The actual Constitution was adopted in a 2011 referendum by almost 99% of the votes.52 It responded to the public demands to improve Moroccan situation during the Arab Spring. The current Constitution is definitely a ground-breaking document in Moroccan history53; it brings a couple of crucial changes to the Moroccan human rights politics. 54 While drafting the Constitution, the King has pledged to take into account all the requirements of his opposition. In the end the Constitution’s factual impacts on human rights observance are allegedly not convincing (E. P. 2014).

When I asked the questions about the practical application of the Constitution and its impact on the individuals, all the respondents looked puzzled. Amnesty International Morocco (2014) noted that even if the Preamble of the Constitution clearly meets the direct application of ratified international treaties on human rights, these are not applied in practice. In addition to that pursuant the Preamble of any of such treaties that would in case of conflict with the national law overrule any sort of local norm. According to E.P. (2014), although the King had committed to comply with the all the Constitution´s requirements and obligations, he did not abide to these in actual practice. Vague language of the Constitution allows Mohammed VI’s regime to selectively interpret and enforce the reforms whenever he feels to be threatened. OMDH (2014) questioned the practical applicability of the Constitution as well; it claimed that the guarantees given by the Constitution are neither fully respected, nor applied. AMDH (2011) repeatedly

51 It was revisited by 1970 Constitution and 1972 Constitution. 52 This fact is the subject of disputes until these days. E.P. (2014) speaking in behalf of 20th February Movement, claimed that the Movement believe that the elections were obviously not transparent. 53 Morocco’s previous Constitutions contained many controversial articles, which were either lost or reformulated in the new Constitution. For example Article 23 of the 1996 Constitution stated that: “The person of the King shall be sacred and inviolable”. In the new Constitution, the world “sacred” no longer appears. However Article 46 states that: “[t]he person of the King is inviolable and respect is owed to him”. 54It names and guarantees modern human rights that were not previously recognized. For example recognition of Tamazight (Berber) language as a state language, amelioration of minority rights, women rights, etc. Although this is a step forward, several rights are without precise normative content; for example, the rights to life and physical integrity are not accompanied by a clear abolition of the death penalty. 27 indicated that the Constitution is non-democratic because of its form and background that led to its creation.

To be more specific, the Constitution provides that certain rights will be defined and regulated by constitutional or ordinary act and statutes 55 , for example freedom of press is guaranteed by the Constitution, but the rules on censorship are set within ordinary legislation (Madani, Maghraoui and Zerhouni 2012). Article 25 of the current Constitution provides that: “[t]he freedoms of thought, of opinion and of expression under all their forms, are guaranteed” (Constitution 2011). The Press law, however, prohibits any criticism of the Monarchy and religion. It also prohibits selected Moroccan taboo topics that include the Royal family and the State’s position on the status of Western Sahara56 (Press Code 2003). The same problem arises while applying the Moroccan Penal Code.

In its last report, concerning Freedom of press, Freedom House57 rated Morocco as ‘not free’, stating that: “[t]he Moroccan Government promised a campaign to improve press freedom in 2012 as a part of its post-Arab spring political reform agenda. These pledges were not fulfilled in practice, however, as unofficial but clear restrictions remained in place during the year, discouraging coverage of politically and socially sensitive subjects” (Freedom House 2013).58

On the contrary, all interviewees saw positive impact of the adoption of the new Constitution, namely as a step forward towards further democratisation and general attention paid to human rights. Amnesty International Morocco claimed that “definitely it is an advantage” (2014). CNDH (2014) stressed the importance of the new Constitution for the future development of the country, too. E. P. (2014) agreed with that opinion, but he added that the Moroccans have loads of work left to do, if they wish to live in a democratic country.59

55 Many of which remain to be enacted and could be restrictive. 56 Article 41 of the Moroccan Press law states that any offense against His Majesty the King, the Royal princess and Princesses shall be punished by imprisonment for 3 to 5 years and a fine of 10,000 to 100,000 dirhams (approximately from 1000 to 10,000 euro). Anyone who makes public anything that undermines the Islamic religion, the Monarchy or territorial integrity will face the same penalty. Original text: „Est punie d'un emprisonnement de 3 à 5 ans et d'une amende de 10.000 à 100.000 dirhams toute offense, par l'un des moyens prévus à l'article 38, envers Sa Majesté le Roi, les princes et princesses Royaux. La même peine est applicable lorsque la publication d'un journal ou écrit porte atteinte à la religion islamique, au régime monarchique ou à l'intégrité territorial” (Code de la Presse 2003: Article 41). 57 Freedom House is an independent watchdog; the U.S. based organisation, founded in 1941. It aims to expand freedoms around the world. 58 Whole report is available online at: http://www.freedomhouse.org/report/freedom- press/2013/morocco#.U3srkPl_tcI. 59 E. P., the co-founder of 20th February Movement is not satisfied with the current human rights situation in the country. He stressed that something has to be done. He claimed that his words are not only empty wishes. As one of the ‘radical’ activists, standing in the first rows, calling for a change, he did not feel safe walking in the streets of Rabat. During the Arab Spring events, he was prosecuted by the police several times, and even arrested once. After spending one year in United States he said, that he was not that active anymore, but despite this he came out to the streets to support his colleagues from time to time. He also planned to leave the country and permanently move to United States in future. 28

Morocco has committed to respect some international and regional human rights instruments. Since Morocco acceded to the United Nations it is bound by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. In 1977 Morocco also signed and in 1979 ratified both human rights covenants, the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. Morocco used to be a member state of the African Union, but since the Union recognized the territory of the Western Sahara as a sovereignty ruled entity, Morocco abandoned this organisation. As a result of that Morocco is not bound by the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights anymore. Morocco is a member state of the League of Arab States; it however have not ratified the Arab Charter on Human Rights yet.

3.1.4 MORROCAN FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION

As aforesaid, the respective human rights advocates reckon that human rights have recently been ameliorated in Morocco; the actual respect to human rights norms is however not ideal. Before I move on to the role of particular NGOs in Morocco, I approach the actual conditions for expressing information, ideas and thoughts freely in the country. First, I present the general NGO’s perspectives on the Moroccan freedom of expression. Second, I point my finger to the most actual cases of the State oppression against people exercising their freedom of expression.

(a) The Authoritatively Imposed Limits Are there any limits imposed on freedom of expression in Morocco? AMDH (2014) noted that freedom of expression had been repeatedly challenged in the course of the last years. The State agencies invaded the protected sphere of freedom of expression. AMDH mentioned that public media had never invited the opposition or activists to talk and discuss their perspectives and spread their ideas on human rights on television and on radio. The opinions opposing the monarchist mainstream were thus not allowed to push forward the discourse in public media. AMDH reckoned that since the King owned the major part of the media he had not allowed for the diversity of opinions and ideas to be presented in national broadcasting; it saw such approach as a direct constraint on freedom of expression. Amnesty International Morocco (2014) stated that most cases of freedom of expression abuses in the 1970s and 1980s were committed on direct political opponents. Present cases are different. As of now, majority of such abuses took place in sphere of journalism and political activism. In recent years journalists and activists, who through either songs, poems or other

29 writings, expressed their non-conform and non-general shared ideas perspectives and opinions, ended as prisoners. OMDH (2014) did not agree with the complaints and critics of the other human rights NGOs that condemn actual situation of freedom of expression in Morocco. According to OMDH freedom of expression was respected and preserved for individuals. Moroccan citizens could express their ideas and opinions, they could freely read different newspapers and magazines (in Arabic and also in French), non-conform journals were not banned anymore and journalists were not persecuted or imprisoned for expressing their opinions. What is more, open political debates took place on television on a daily basis. Ali Anouzla (2014) informed me about so-called red lines; artificially created boundaries related to public taboos that should not be exceeded by journalists.60 Journalists who had crossed these lines regularly faced consequences in a form of authoritative punishment. In his opinion journalists tended to stay within these red lines to avoid heavy fines, prison sentences, or extralegal intimidation and physical violence. He regarded this phenomenon as self-censorship. Some journalists continued to push the boundaries of permissible coverage and reported on sensitive topics such as the monarchy, national security, religion, and sexuality, but many had moved outside Morocco to escape the authoritative surveillance and oppression.61

(b) Actual Oppressions

I briefly introduce the recent cases that had been noticed and mentioned by human rights advocates in Table D below. All of these are profiled as the most striking cases of the State’s disrespect to freedom of expression. There, however, are a couple of other cases, when the State disrespected the checks of freedom of expression. Freedom House62, reported for example the case of Walid Bahomane, a teenage student who received a 18 month long prison term for posting a caricature of the King at the Facebook page.63 Abdul-Samad al-Haidour was sentenced to 3 years in prison for criticizing royal policies and calling the King a ‘dog’ in a recording posted on

60 See Article 41 of 2003 Moroccan Press law. Supra note 56. 61 E.g. the case Ali Amar, a Moroccan journalist, co-founder of the weekly newspaper Le journal hebdomadaire (first independent journal banned in Morocco from 2010). He currently lives in exile in Belgium. His 2009 book Mohamed VI: le grand malentendu (Mohamed VI: the big misunderstanding) was a bestseller in France. This critical evaluation of the first ten years of the reign of current Moroccan king is, however, censored and forbidden in Morocco. In 2012 Amar published his second book Paris-Marrakesh: argent, pouvoir et reseaux (Paris-Marrakesh: money, power and networks), analysing the ties between Moroccan and French elites during the Arab spring revolutions. 62 Whole 2013 Report considering Freedom of Press is available online at: http://www.freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-press/2013/morocco#.U3srkPl_tcI. 63 For more information see for example the Reporters without Borders public statement. Available online at: http://en.rsf.org/morocco-authorities-keep-media-in-check-29-02-2012,41959.html. 30

YouTube.64 Blogger Mohamed Sokrate was arrested in May 2012 and subsequently sentenced to two years in prison on drug possession and trafficking charges.65 The actual reason for these charges was the fact that he reported on the King and other sensitive topics. Similar to Sokrate, Mohamed al-Dawas, a freelance journalist was imprisoned in 2011 on drug trafficking. All in all, he only reported critically on the Government practices. 66 Above that arrests and imprisonment of human rights activists for expressing their positions and opinions allegedly continue up to now.67

64 For more information, consult Human Rights Watch statement. Available online at: http://www.hrw.org/news/2013/07/16/morocco-free-student-imprisoned-insulting-king. 65 More information can be found on Reporters without Borders website. Available online at: http://en.rsf.org/morocco-blogger-gets-two-year-jail-15-06-2012,42803.html. 66 For more information consult Moroccan online citizen media platform Mamfakinch.com. Available online at: https://www.mamfakinch.com/urgent-action-needed-to-save-moroccan-journalist/. 67 See e.g.: http://allafrica.com/stories/201404081686.html. 31

Table D. Actual Cases of Sanctions against the Individuals Name Who is it? Accusation Authoritative punishment Ali Anouzla Moroccan Ali is known for his critical articles of the King Mohammed VI´s rule. Lakome68 journal served for He was arrested and imprisoned on the 17th September 2013, journalist, chief uncovering the biggest scandal of the Mohammed VI´s reign known as the ‘Danielgate’69. The and on October 25, 2013 released on a bail. The Appellate editor of the scandal led to spontaneous massive demonstrations against the King in August 2013. On court will be held on May 20, 2014. independent September 2013 Anouzla was arrested and charged of “advocating terrorism”, “initiating terrorist Lakome.com remains blocked up to 2014. news website acts” and “materially assisting the terrorists” (under the Anti-terrorist Statute number 03-03). He Lakome.com only posted an article with a link to a video elaborated by Al-Qaeda70 on the 13th September 2013. Many observers saw it as a revenge for the “Daniel scandal”.

Mustapha El Moroccan Pursuant to the Anti-terrorist Statute number 03-03, he was charged for “belonging to a terrorist While he was arrested on May 11, 2013, he was already Hasnaoui Islamist organisation”; for „constitution of criminal gang to commit the terrorist acts within the framework sentenced on July 11, 2013 to three years in prison. journalist of a collective enterprise to cause serious harm to public order through intimidation, terror or violence“. Observers see his imprisonment as a reaction to his criticisms of governmental practices against Islamists in Morocco.

Rachid Niny Moroccan Niny was persecuted for gravely offending public officials (under Article 263 of the Penal Code71), He was arrested and imprisoned on April 28, 2011. He was journalist, for accusing public officials of violating the law without providing any evidence (Article 26472), and sentenced to one-year prison term on June 9, 2011. He was columnist and insulting the judiciary or discrediting its rulings or attempting to influence the trial before the Court released on April 28, 2012. editor of the Al (Article 26673). Massae Human rights advocates state, that his imprisonment was reaction to his work, He frequently targeted what he saw newspaper as acts of injustice, repression and corruption, he blamed Moroccan authorities or specific officials and agencies for these acts in his daily column “Chouf Tchouf74”.

68 Lakome is a Rabat-based independent newspaper with a focus on civil liberties and human rights. It describes its mission as protecting the right to access information and true reporting, as well as “defending freedom of expression, and the values of citizenship and human rights”. Lakome has been censured long time (both Arabic and French version), currently the web page is not active anymore. For more information visit: https://en.rsf.org/lebanon-lakome-news-website-still-blocked-20-02-2014,45905.html. 69 Monarch has pardoned 48 Spanish prisoners in Morocco (as a gesture to demonstrate good relations with the Spanish King Juan Carlos); one of these was a serial child rapist, who was originally sentenced to 30 years in prison for raping 11 Moroccan children; the youngest child was only two years old). 70 The video was entitled "Morocco, the kingdom of corruption and despotism". And was obviously directed against the King Mohammed VI, criticizing his politics. 71 Article 263 states that everyone who by his/her words, gestures, threats, sending or delivery of any object, either by non-public writing or drawing, express intent to prejudice honour, delicacy or respect for authorities, contempt toward exercise their duties or in the course of this exercise, a magistrate, a public officer, a commander or agent of the police, is punished by imprisonment from one month to one year and a fine of 250 to 5000 dirhams. 72 Article 264 specifies the punishment for persons who offense the public authorities, produce false evidence relative to the imaginary offense, or declare before the judicial authority the offender who neither committed nor conspired to commit the act. 73 Article 266 frames that the words, deeds or public writings that tend to discredit the judicial decisions, that are likely to undermine the authority of the justice or independence are punishable by the penalties laid down in Article 263. 74 It is a colloquial expression meaning ‘look and see’. 32

Mouad Moroccan He was first accused of “assaulting young royalist”, he succeeded to plead not guilty. This case was He was originally arrested on September 10, 2011 while on Belghouat “El- rapper, made public and subsequently with the help of human rights advocates and media internationalized. January 15, sentenced to four months in prison (these 4 Haqed” member of the His second accusation was founded on “showing contempt” towards “public servants in the months corresponded the time he previously had spent in 20th February exercise of their duty”, with the intention of “undermining their honour” (pursuant the Article 263 detention). He was thus released on the day of the verdict. Movement of the Penal Code75) and “showing contempt” towards the State institutions (Article 265 of the The second imprisonment and subsequent one-year prison Penal Code76). In fact he was prosecuted for his criticism towards the authorities. sentence occurred to him in March, 2012. He was released In February 2014 a presentation of his new album Walou was banned by the authorities. from prison on March 29, 2013. He was arrested on May 19, 2014 again. Officially for buying tickets for a football match on the black market, in fact observers claimed that he was provoked to fight with a police officer.77

Mohamed El Convert to He was accused for proselytizing78 young Muslims (pursuant the Article 220 of the Penal Code79). He was arrested on August 28, 2013 and subsequently in an Baladi – Christianity Human Rights advocates claimed that El Baladi was sentenced for converting to Christianity.80 allegedly unfair trial that lasted only a week, sentenced to 30 months in prison (verdict was proclaimed on September 3, 2013). In order to defend El Baladi AMDH sent 11 advocating lawyers. The Court postponed the appeal hearing to December 2013, then it was postponed again. All charges against El Baladi were dropped at a hearing on February 6, 2014.81

Teenagers Oussama (16), At the end of September 2013 a couple of teenagers posted their photo where they kissed each On October 3, 2013 the teenagers were arrested and put into From Nador Mouhsin (15) other on their Facebook page. Following that, the image found its way into the hands of a local the juvenile centre, while the Court released them on a bail and Raja (14) newspaper that went on to publish it. three days later. All three risked two years of imprisonment (under Article 483 of the Penal Code82) for “an outrage The hearing was held on October 10, but it was postponed to public decency”. Mouhsin (15) who kissed younger Raja (14) also risked up to five years in to November 22. On December 6, 2013 the Court acquitted prison for “harassment” of a person under 18 years (under the Article 484 of the Penal Code83). all three teenagers.

75 Supra note 71. 76 Article 265 asserts that the contempt towards constituted bodies shall be punished in accordance with the provisions of Article 263. 77 This message appeared only on independent Moroccan newspaper TelQuel. For more information visit its webpage, available online at: http://www.telquel-online.com/content/comment- l7a9ed-s%E2%80%99est-retrouv%C3%A9-au-commissariat?utm_content=buffer04c61&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer. 78 To convert or to attempt to convert (someone) from one religion, belief, or opinion to another (Oxford online dictionary). 79 Article 220 declares that those inducing a Muslim to convert may be punished by six months to three years in prison and fined up to 500 dirhams. 80 Allegedly he set up by an uncle with whom he had a dispute. The uncle had hired two teenage boys to feign interest in Christianity. The police went on to arrest him for proselytizing minors when he met with the boys a second time. 81 Prosecutor stated that according to 2011 Constitution, freedom of worship is guaranteed to all Moroccan citizens. 82 Article 483 norms that those who by the nudity or obscenity of their actions commits an outrage to public decency might be punished by imprisonment from one month to two years and a fine of 500 dirhams. 83 Article 484 stipulates that any harassment or non-violent attempt on the person under 18 years is punishable by imprisonment of two to five years. 33

3.2 MOROCCAN HUMAN RIGHTS ORGANISATIONS

“Amnesty International identifies Morocco as a country where the presence of human rights advocates is desperately needed. Even if their activities and positions differ significantly, their goal is the same - to promote, monitor and enforce human rights” (Amnesty International Morocco 2014).

As of now, there are roughly thousands of recognized NGOs in Morocco, while only a part of them deals with human rights issues, the other endeavours individual’s freedom of expression constraints. I found that there is a dozen of NGOs that struggle for amelioration of freedom of expression; using the data I have collected in my field research I provide a list of targeted NGOs in Table E below. These NGOs however vary in mandate they claim. Since I reckon these qualities of particular NGOs determine the way they approach individual cases of freedom of expression abuse, I qualify most important of these qualities below as well.

First, I regarded agenda placement as a prime factor that predestines the NGO’s topic orientation. All targeted NGOs indicated that they are human rights advocates who believe in the universality of human rights. Their activities therefore included a broad spectrum of human rights topics. All of them, in certain ways, entered into the field of freedom of expression. They mostly concentrated on freedom of opinion, freedom of press, and also the unlimited right to inform and be informed. In contrast to the other NGOs, OMDH (2014) asserted that the limits on individual freedom of expression in Morocco were adequate; OMDH however continued to promote the right to access the information.

To continue, I found that the general practice and vital parts of activities of targeted NGOs had very similar patterns. Notwithstanding that the mandates of these NGOs differ in part; they are limited by (a) the kind of membership, (b) the independence status of particular NGO and (c) the territorial scope of the activities.

(a) Members are a building stone of every NGO. The kind of membership in a particular organization predefines its dimensions, influences the idea stability and character of its strategies. OMDH (2014) presented itself as an elitist organisation. Its members are intellectuals, academics, researchers, lawyers, writers, artists and some university students. Owing to this OMDH usually studies the targeted cases properly. In contrast to that, AMDH (2014) proclaimed itself as organisation created for masses, organisation of the people for the people. It consists of the more than 14000 members throughout North Africa and the Arab World. That makes it a whale among other human rights NGOs in the region. AMDH does not discuss the topics secretly, it spreads the information among its members, and mobilize public opinion. Since Amnesty International is the global NGO with more than 3 million

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supporters, members and activists in over 150 countries and territories, I consider it a mass membership NGO. Inasmuch as the vast majority of its members are nominated by the King, CNDH is a national agency with closed membership. It is an elitist NGO.

(b) The targeted NGOs claimed that they are all independent on any Government, its agencies or the political actors, but it is apparent that some of these NGOs are closer to the governing powers than the others. The actual level of independence of these NGOs thus varies. For example, OMDH (2014) offers the ideas and prompt them directly to the Government. While it prefers the dialogue with the authorities, it does not aspire to mobilize public opinion. OMDH condemns pressure manifestations. CNDH (2014) did not use public demonstrations or any other similar means to influence the authorities. Similar to OMDH, CNDH preferred a mutual dialogue with the authorities. Contrary to that, AMDH (2014) did not reject peaceful manifestations as a mean of pressure on the authorities. Unlike the OMDH, AMDH believed that only masses that demand change may push the Government to change current situation. Amnesty International Morocco (2014) admitted that it was willing to use all available peaceful means (including public demonstrations) to put the authorities under pressure.

(c) The last important quality of the particular NGO is the territorial scope of its activities. Some of the targeted NGOs present, disseminate and emphasise their discourse at domestic or regional rather than international fora. Others prefer influencing the topics through global influence networks. CNDH is a typical domestic NGO that orients its efforts towards the dialogue with the Government; its transnational relations are thus very scarce. OMDH (2014) used to be a local Moroccan NGO, but since 2010 it became transnational organisation. It pursues the cooperation with external actors and aspires to have an international impact. AMDH was established in order to fill the void of NGO that could investigate the local topics and push them through to the other international NGOs. The Moroccan section of Amnesty International (2014) considered itself as an international organisation. Through opening the localized sections and international offices, Amnesty International finds a way to get closer to targeted local topics. Therefore it can approach localized cases even from its central office in London. Along with that local sections are not allowed to intervene into local cases directly. They only inquire into the case and emphasize it globally through the General Secretariat in London.

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Table E. The List of Moroccan NGOs NGO Abbreviation Full Name Kind of Agenda Kind of Membership Independence/ About (original name in French) /Territorial Scope LMDDH Moroccan Universal Various Dependent/ It is considered to be the first human rights movement not only in Morocco, but also in all Arab (La Ligue Marocaine League for agenda domestic, regional countries. It was established in 1972. LMDDH originally dedicated its efforts to the State´s accession to De Défense Des the Defence international human rights declarations and conventions, thus promoting respect for human rights and Droits De of Human fundamental freedoms (Saha 1999). It monitors and condemns individual violations of human rights. L’homme)84 Rights LMDDH organises various cultural activities such as educational human rights programs, meetings, forums, round tables, conferences and scientific symposia. It also conducts research studies on human rights and fundamental freedoms. It cooperates with the Government to abolish and revise procedures and legislation that affects the enjoyment of human rights, as well (LMDDH 2012). AMDH Moroccan Universal Mass Independent/ It was founded in 1979. Following its current slogan “Continuous and united struggle for a democratic (Association Association agenda membership domestic, Constitution enshrining the supremacy of values of universal human rights”, AMDH strive to preserve human Marocaine Des of Human regional, dignity, the respect for all human rights in their universality and their global extent, and for the Droits De L’homme) Rights international protection, the defence and promotion of these rights (AMDH 2013). OMDH Moroccan Universal Elitist (In)dependent/ It was established in December 1988. The organization relies on the values and principles of the UN (Organisation Organization agenda membership domestic, Charter, international conventions and declarations. It was founded on the principle of plurality and Marocaine Des for Human regional, independence from public authorities and ideological and political backgrounds. It works in the field of Droits Humaines) Rights international human rights protection and promotion. To support state institutions, the separation of powers and judicial independence, in order to consolidate rule of law (OMDH official web page). CNDH National Universal Elitist Dependent/ It was originally called Advisory Council for Human Rights (Conseil Consultative des Droits Humaines). It (Conseil National Human agenda membership domestic, regional was established in 1990 by the former King Hassan II as a governmental organisation that “strengthens the Des Droits Rights commitment of Morocco to protecting its citizens’ rights and freedoms. It reflects Morocco’s respect to its international Humaines) Council commitments in the protection and promotion of human rights” (CNDH official web page). Smaller Moroccan Universal Various Independent/ These appeared in Moroccan domestic scene especially in response to the events of the Arab Spring. Human Rights agenda domestic, regional The vast majority of these NGOs represent the actual uprising of civil society. The most active and most NGOs visible NGOs that fight for freedom of expression are for example Movement for individual liberties (Mouvement pour les libertes individuelles - MALI) or already cited the 20th February Movement. Amnesty Universal Mass Independent/ The global NGO with more than 3 million supporters, members and activists in over 150 countries and International agenda membership domestic, territories, Amnesty International has its own Moroccan section. regional, international Other International Various Various Various Human Rights Watch does not have its office in Morocco, but includes Morocco under its zone of Human Rights interest – Middle East and North Africa. There are many other NGOs that monitor the human rights NGOS situation in Morocco and publish their reports, relating freedom of expression.85 These are for instance Freedom House or Reporters without Borders.

84 Based on the documents and information regarding LMDDH, I classified LMDDH as moderate NGO. I however could not include LMDDH into my research sample, because I have not met anybody affiliated with it, their web page did not function properly, and I could not locate their office. In addition to that I was not successful in collecting LMDDH documents, the vast majority of them was in Arabic. 85 These NGOs focus mainly on notion of freedom of press. 36

3.3 NGO’s STRATEGIES WITHIN THE ACTUAL CASES

With respect to NGO’s strategies designated in the theoretical part above, I now bestow concrete data on NGO’s strategies of human rights promotion and protection.

3.3.1 EDUCATION AS A STARTING POINT AND CONTINOUS EFFORT

All interviewed NGOs asserted that human rights education is the first step towards effective human rights promotion. OMDH (2014) regularly organize meetings, conferences and seminars on special human rights subjects. Amnesty International used so-called ‘awareness campaigns’ through which it sought to get citizen’s attention about sensitive topics. 86 “If the objective was not to change the law but to change mentality, then we emphasize human rights education” (Amnesty International Morocco 2014). AMDH (2014) organized annual summer camps for students, university professors and other human rights activists. CNDH (2014) sought to increase human rights awareness of young people by creation of partnerships and organization of joint events with the universities and academic institutes all around the country. All organisations believed that through human rights education they can put a spotlight to the question of human rights in Morocco.

Education strategy is on one hand employed to push forward a general human rights discourse. Therefore it does not need to be connected to the actual abuse. On the other hand, it is regularly triggered if misconduct takes place. All of the targeted NGOs use education strategy in virtually all the cases they publicly advocate. Only a minority of such cases is not being communicated as an education discourse.

3.3.2 INVESTIGATION

The targeted NGOs usually commenced the case work with a collection of all relevant information from a variety of sources (field investigation, questioning the victims, networks with the other NGOs, media, etc.). In order to investigate actual abuses OMDH (2014) created the Committee for the protection of rights which studied cases and verified gathered information. Since this process takes time, OMDH was not punctual with its reaction to an individual exploitation of freedom of expression. It rather verified all the facts before it presented the case to the Government. Other organisations also kept special analysis departments that accomplished the respective investigations (CNDH 2014, AMDH 2014).

86 In Morocco these topics include mainly cultural and religious discourse. For example in March 2014 Amnesty International Morocco launched campaign My body my rights to raise awareness and support for women´s rights. In addition to that Amnesty International Morocco (2014) stressed the human rights education for young people, it is composed of 4000 members, half of which are university students.

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All interviewed human rights advocates were gathering nominal data on the cases of the Teenagers from Nador, Ali Anouzla, Rachid Niny and Moroccan rapper El-Haqed. Without triggering the interest of other targeted advocates, AMDH worked on the cases of Mustapha El Hasnaoui and Mohamed El Baladi alone.

3.3.3 REPORT PUBLISHING

Having all the necessary information, human rights advocates evaluated the severity of the case, selected the following procedures and pushed forward their statements or published detailed advocacy reports. Amnesty International Morocco (2014) declared that it routinely used report publishing techniques. The Moroccan section had its own researcher based in London who visited the country regularly; she spoke to the Government, other organisations, victims, lawyers, the press, etc. She tried to get as much data as available to make sure Amnesty analyses the case objectively. Amnesty International published annual reports. In addition to that, it also announced specific reports regularly. These regarded special campaigns or topics of interest. Thanks to their positive relationship to the Government, OMDH and CNDH preferred to present its reports and statements directly to the authorities. They aspired to solve the cases through mutual discussions (CNDH 2014, OMDH 2014). Contrary to that, AMDH and Amnesty International pushed their reports to the public to inform wide spectrums of society about the controversial issues (AMDH 2014, Amnesty International Morocco 2014).

I cannot leave out Human Rights Watch; a crucial actor in report publishing. Even if I did not succeed to interview HRW, inasmuch as they do not have local section in Morocco, I used its reports through all my work.

3.3.4 MOBILISATION OF PUBLIC OPINION

Why do the advocates publish the reports? Their goal is to bring human rights abuses to the attention of the public and international community. First, they aspire to inform the society about oppressing politics or concrete excesses against the individuals who trespass the territory of the permissible. They both notified Moroccan people and other advocates. In chosen cases they urged for further diffusion of the case details within the international arena (AMDH 2014, Amnesty International Morocco 2014). Second, they aimed for proper mobilisation of public opinion, namely mobilisation of public shame.87

To inform the wider public, OMDH (2014) had organized press conferences, where it invited not only journalists, but also field experts and other human rights activists.

87 The processes of mobilisation of public opinion and mobilisation of public shame are very similar. This is the reason why I do not make such a difference between these two.

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With respect to targeted cases Amnesty International Morocco (2014) strived for mobilising of its members, partners, the press (country wide news) and from time to time also mobilising of parliamentary members or other authorities. It achieved its aims with the help of petition signing technique, through publishing critical videos, blogs, etc.; there were different ways to mobilize public shame. In cases of Rachid Niny, Ali Anouzla or El-Haqed Amnesty International typically used petitions88. Amnesty International revealed that it had quite a time to collect reasonable number of petitioners. Owing to the rapid settlement of the case of young Teenagers from Nador, it could not launch the petition process.

AMDH (2014) asserted that so-called solidarity actions were crucial. From its point of view these manifested support to the oppressed victims, for example in Ali Anouzla case. AMDH organized solidarity action and created the Committee to support Ali Anouzla in France, Belgium and in Spain. In addition to that LMDDH led the solidarity campaign for the support of journalist El Hasnaoui. Such solidarity actions were organized all over Europe (France, Belgium) to support the young Teenagers from Nador. These were titled as kiss-in actions. MALI movement while supported by AMDH, also organized a kiss-in event in Rabat in front of the Parliament.

In contemporary technologically advanced time, advocates can use a variety of techniques to mobilise public opinion or public shame. For example, shocked citizens first endorsed the Teenagers from Nador, Ali Anouzla or imprisoned rapper El-Haqed on social network Facebook and then they manifested on the streets. From perspective of human rights advocates the differences between solidarity actions and peaceful demonstrations were no longer clear cut.

3.3.5 LOBBYING

Incriminating data that NGOs collected, verified and disseminated served as their major weapon to lobby the Government. In order to safeguard efficient human rights protection NGOs sent lobbying letters within Morocco (OMDH, CNDH) or outside the country to influence the respective authorities (AMDH, Amnesty International). Outside the country, NGOs contacted regional and international actors, for example UN agencies, special reporters or international human rights organisations such as Amnesty International or Human Rights Watch (AMDH 2014). In addition to that, the advocates also contacted other States to put pressure on

88 Besides Amnesty International, for example Mohamed Dourrachad published a petition on the web page Change.org, it reached around 3300 signatures. It is available online at: http://www.change.org/petitions/free- rachid-nini. One of the numerous petitions to support Ali Anouzla was published for example on the web site Citizen Petitions (Petitions Citoyennes) and gain approx. 3000 signatures. It is available online at: https://secure.avaaz.org/fr/petition/Liberte_pour_le_journaliste_Ali_ANOUZLA/?fbdm. The petition to support El-Haqed was formed also on Facebook.

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the Government that do not allow expressing ideas and thoughts freely. In my cases NGOs lobbied for Ali Anouzla89, Rachid Niny or El-Haqed.

3.3.6 DIRECT ASSISTANCE

NGOs also defend freedom of expression of Moroccans by providing the legal assistance90 to the victims of abuses. They support the victim within a concrete case. AMDH hired eleven lawyers to defend Mohamed El Baladi. It employed a special lawyer to maintain the case of Teenagers from Nador (AMDH 2014). Amnesty International Morocco (2014), OMDH (2014) and CNDH (2014) all asserted that they also actively provided legal assistance to the victims of human rights abuses; they however did not apply this strategy in cases I inquired into.

3.3.7 PEACEFUL MANIFESTATIONS

From the time of the Arab Spring events, with the help of modern communication technologies, the citizens started to manifest their views and opinions on the streets frequently. Led by the popular 20th February Movement, unsatisfied Moroccans mobilized themselves on Facebook; they went out to and called for their rights (E. P. 2014).

The majority of peaceful demonstrations that had already taken place were not organized by concrete NGOs but rather by activists from uprising civil society. From my research sample only AMDH (2014) stated that it was not afraid to mobilize its members to manifest their opinions and requirements on the streets. AMDH regarded public manifestations as a way to put the authorities under pressure. Amnesty International Morocco (2014) appraised that they might have lead a peaceful demonstration; it however didn’t use that opportunity in Morocco in relation to freedom of expression violations yet.

3.3.8 BOYCOTTS

None of the interviewed human rights advocates upheld that they used boycotts to fight for the rights of the individuals oppressed for expressing their opinions beyond the red lines.

89 The most recent lobbying letter, related to the Anouzla case, was sent by Human Rights Watch to the U.S. General secretary John Kerry before his visit in Morocco in April 2014. 90 Human rights NGOs may also provide humanitarian assistance to the victims of human rights assistance. I do not focus on that aspect, because I did not come across any cases where humanitarian aid was used in cases of freedom of expression oppressions.

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Table F. Summary of NGO’s Strategies Employed in Studied Cases Investigation Report Legal Mobilising Public Lobbying Peaceful Boycotts Publishing Assistance Opinion Manifestations Ali Anouzla ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ Mustapha ✓ ✓ El Hasnaoui Rachid Niny ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ El-Haqed ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ Mohamed ✓ ✓ ✓ El Baladi Teenagers ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ from Nador

3.4 NETWORKING

“There is expression in Morocco that one hand cannot clap, that’s for sure” (Amnesty International Morocco 2014).

3.4.1 HUMAN RIGHTS ADVOCACY NETWORKS

Human rights advocates introduced me to their daily mutual cooperation; they explained to me the essence of partnerships, memberships in numerous groups or coalitions, organization of joint events, activities, seminars, conferences, etc. in domestic, regional and international environments.

Following the motto “unity of action for human rights defence”91 AMDH (2014) established its relations with many human rights advocates and organizations. Its principal Moroccan partners are democracy associations, political organisations and also CNDH. Speaking of national networking, AMDH leads and coordinates a so-called Moroccan coalition of human rights organisations that groups 23 domestic human rights advocates. Besides this AMDH is a member of several regional and international organisations and networks; inter alia International Federation of Human Rights (FIDH), Arab Organisation for Human Rights or the Interafrican Union for Human rights. In terms of foreign partners AMDH claimed that it had cooperated with European Union institutions, Frederic Ebert Foundation and it also had the status of the consultant at the UN Economic and Social Council.

When I asked Amnesty International Morocco about its cooperation with other human rights advocates, it replied that at the heart of Amnesty International is the idea that “we are most powerful when we stand together for human rights”. Amnesty International Morocco (2014) cooperated

91 The 10th Congress’ motto. The Congress was held in Bouznika, Morocco from 19th to 21st April 2013. Its aim was to unify work between human rights movements and democratic movements in general.

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with other human rights advocates thoroughly; it shared same objectives and priorities with individual advocates, created partnerships and participated on common projects. Amnesty International stressed that the question whether to create a partnerships or not usually depends on the nature of the joint activities. Amnesty International also maintained that it had formed both national and international coalitions.92 It closely cooperated with other international NGOs, such as Reporters without Borders or FIDH.

In response to my question OMDH (2014) announced that it enclosed partnerships with the local, regional and international human rights advocates. Its most important domestic partner is CNDH. If OMDH organized meetings, seminars, etc. it commonly invited all relevant advocates. Such practises are spread within the whole Moroccan advocacy sphere. If OMDH had been invited to participate on activities, it does not usually pursue93, it preliminarily declined to put its hands to the plow. At the regional level, OMDH is a member of all Arabic Red Crescent organisations and it has an observer position at the Arab League. At the international level, OMDH is a member of FIDH and it closely cooperates with Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, European Union, and the United Nations.

As a national institution, CNDH is a mediator between non-governmental organisations and the authorities. As CNDH had professed, it closely cooperated with OMDH, universities and Governmental institutions such as the Offices of Ministers. Internationally, CNDH collaborates with the national institutions of other Arab countries, United Nations and the European Union.94

Speaking of regional level of mutual cooperation, all of abovementioned human rights advocates are members of the Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Network 95 . Speaking of international partnerships, FIDH provides and supports the NGOs mutual cooperation.

With respect to information provided above, mutual cooperation of individual human rights advocates (targeted NGOs) in Morocco (locally) and also outside the country (regionally and within international arena) exists and it is quite intense.96 It relies on several factors, whether the mutual cooperation on a case is invoked. Solving such question would however go beyond the scope of my thesis.

92 For example Coalition against death penalty or Coalition of women’s rights. 93 Most of the time it depends on the mandate of particular NGO – for example OMHD strongly rejected manifesting on the streets. 94 For more information visit CNDH web site, available online at: http://www.ccdh.org.ma/an. 95The EMHRN promotes networking, cooperation and development of partnerships between human rights NGOs, activists and wider civil society in the Euro-Mediterranean region. The EMHRN acts as a regional forum for human rights NGOs and a pool of expertise on promotion and protection of human rights in the region. More information available online at: http://www.euromedrights.org/eng/. 96 The memberships of the domestic human rights NGOs in international organisations are also considered a prestige. They were very proud to talk about it during my interview.

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3.4.2 ADVOCACY NETWORKS IN PARTICULAR CASES OF OPPRESSION

Apart from data on functioning daily networking, I dedicated a respective space to bring the data on network activation in actual cases of freedom of expression oppressions (consult Table D).

(a) Ali Anouzla It did not take long before Anouzla’s controversial arrest in September 2013 was communicated internationally. Through intensive media coverage 97 and massive internationalisation, numerous external actors98 expressly took part in the case. Anouzla himself (2014) claimed that his imprisonment was the first Moroccan case that linked human rights activists all around the world.

Over 60 free speech and human rights organisations (domestic, regional and international, too), mobilized to respond to his imprisonment and to repudiate the blockage of the independent online journal Lakome where he was a chief editor. They spoke up in solidarity with the journalist, called for his immediate release, required that the charges against him would to be dropped and the Lakome’s offices would be reinstalled. They stated that they “[f]ear that the Moroccan authorities have not only flouted international standards regarding freedom of expression and press freedom, but have also violated the Moroccan public's right to know” (Article19 2013). They declared that to charge Anouzla for ‘materially assisting’, ‘advocating terrorism’ and ‘initiating terrorist acts’ was unfounded, that it amounts to a violation of the journalist’s freedom of expression and his right to inform the public. They proclaimed that his accusation contradicted international law. 99

From the sample NGOs I have interviewed, only Amnesty International100 and AMDH had held joint actions together. Amnesty International (2013) proclaimed Anouzla a ‘prisoner of conscience’101. AMDH (2014) established a Committee to Support Ali Anouzla and its president publicly claimed that she believes that Anouzla had been targeted because he was one of the rare independent journalists in the country and his articles had an impact on public opinion. That was

97 The media (same as during the Arab Spring events) also played important role not only in spreading the information about the case, but also in mobilization of the international community. Internet pages has been created, visit for example www.freeanouzla.com. More information about the case can be found under hashtag #FreeAnouzla. 98 Regional and international human rights NGOs (HRW, Reporters without borders, Egyptian, Tunisian human rights NGOs, etc.), international organisations (UN) and states (France, Spain, United states). 99 Whole statement available online at: http://www.article19.org/resources.php/resource/37284/en/morocco:- over-60-organisations-call-for-immediate-release-of-journalist-ali-anouzla. 100 Here I stress the fact that not Amnesty International Morocco, but General Secretariat based in London worked on Anouzla´s case. Amnesty International use this practice to preserve its neutrality and impartiality. 101 The term used by Amnesty International. It refers to anyone imprisoned because of their race, sexual orientation, religion or political views. It refers also to those who has been imprisoned for the non-violent expression of their conscientiously held beliefs.

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what the State was afraid of. Anouzla himself (2014) declared that his prosecution was just an excuse to silence his critical voice against the Government.

OMDH (2014) did not think that Anouzla’s case was related to freedom of expression. It noted that Anouzla was prosecuted and later imprisoned for spreading information that could destabilize the State102; not for expressing his ideas or perspectives. CNDH (2014) shared this view. Despite this fact, both organisations supported Anouzla’s liberation. They supported a campaign that should have enforced the journalist’s right to a fair trial.

Human rights advocates responded to Anouzla’s imprisonment; they however did directly pressure the Prosecutor and the Courts to liberate Anouzla in October 2013. The State had reacted to international pressure and after Anouzla spent one month in prison, he was released on bail. Second time the transnational advocacy network had activated was just before journalist’s expected trial in February 2014. That time 45 human rights NGOs mobilized again and called for dropping the charges against Ali Anouzla (Reporters without Borders 2014a). In reaction to massive international pressure the trial has been postponed again until May 2014 (E. P. 2014). May trial did not take place; the Court postponed a case again.

(b) Mustafa El Hasnaoui The case of Mustafa El-Hasnaoui is even older that Anouzla’s case. Like Anouzla, El- Hasnaoui was charged under the Anti-terrorist Statute (consult Table D). Unlike Anouzla, who gained all international attention, in immediate reaction to El Hasnaoui´s case almost none of human rights advocacy networks were activated. At the domestic level AMDH worked on the case and LMDDH launched a solidarity action to support El Hasnaoui. At the regional level the Arabic Network for Human Rights Information 103 (ANHRI) published its statement claiming that “[w]hat Mustafa suffers is a painful blow to the freedom of the press and the freedom of expression in Morocco and the authorities must accept the criticism and the other’s opinion, in particularly, as the blogger has only his pen and the security solution shouldn’t be the solution to address the word” (ANHRI 2013). In February 2014 (almost 6 months after El Hasnaoui’s imprisonment) the first signs of international networking appeared. UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention overtook the initiative and called for the liberation of the persecuted journalist.104

102 OMDH (2014) stated that even if Moroccan position in the region is quite stable. Still the information containing the ideas of terrorist attack on the country may destabilize not only Morocco but whole region. 103 ANHRI is Egyptian NGO devoted to promotion of freedom of expression across the Middle East and North Africa. For more information visit its web page available online at: http://www.anhri.net/en/. 104 More information available at: http://www.amnesty.org/en/news/morocco-stop-using-terrorism-pretext- imprison-journalists-2014-05-20.

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(c) Rachid Niny The arrest and following imprisonment of Rachid Niny in April 2013, and its duration, gradually attracted the attention of dozens of national and international human rights organisations, who have joined the chorus of protests demanding his release (E. P. 2014). Among the Moroccan NGOs I have interviewed, only AMDH and Amnesty International joined the action. In its 2011 Appeal for Action, Amnesty International claimed that Niny was being targeted for his peaceful criticism of the Moroccan authorities and designated him as a ‘prisoner of conscience’.105 In January 2012 Niny was awarded with an Oxfam Novib/PEN Award for Freedom of Expression in recognition of writers who have been persecuted for their work and continue working despite the consequences.106

The case captured more international than domestic attention. Human Rights Watch stated that “Rachid Niny’s incarceration belies the commitment of Moroccan authorities to freedom of expression as affirmed in the country’s new constitution”.107 Human rights advocates did not reach Niny’s release, but the networks were activated and worked seriously on the case. For E. P. (2014) even the fact that the case get beyond the Moroccan borders is important. He believed that each case like that, even if it is not solved immediately, might help to change country’s politics and help to prevent further cases to arise.

(d) El-Haqed

Rapper El-Haqed and his songs represented a symbol of the Moroccan Arab Spring. He is also a member of the popular 20th February Movement. His case meant a lot, especially for young Moroccans calling for a change.

Even his first arrest in September 2011 dragged the attention of domestic, regional and international public media and quickly became a part of international debate about human rights guarantees in Morocco. Less than two months after his release (in January 2012) El-Haqed was arrested again and sentenced to one year in prison. A wave of domestic protests followed his second imprisonment. He had two more affairs with the Moroccan authorities in 2014 (consult Table D).

Regarding El-Haqed’s case AMDH together with the 20th February Movement and civil society, launched peace manifestations to express support and protest publicly against his sentences (calling the words “No more silence”). AMDH (2014) declared El-Haqed as a ‘prisoner of

105 Whole document available online at: http://www.amnesty.org/en/appeals-for-action/free-moroccan-journalist- rachid-nini. 106 You can find more information on the official website of PEN International, available online at: http://www.pen-international.org/oxfam-novibpen-award-for-freedom-of-expression/. 107 Whole report is available online at: http://www.hrw.org/news/2011/12/06/morocco-free-popular-columnist.

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conscience’ and stated that he is one of many activists regularly imprisoned in Morocco. Regarding international networking, the case was pushed forward through regional and international media. A Facebook page Freedom for Mouaad L’ HAQED has been created, even online petition had circulated.108

Again international pressure did not attain liberation of the artist, but for example Torie Rose DeGhett, who is the reporter of The Guardian, wrote that “By dragging the rapper to court for his incendiary lyrics, the state isn't silencing him, it is drawing attention to his work”.109

(e) Mohamed El Baladi El Baladi’s case regarded freedom of religion110 as well. A Moroccan convert from Islam El Baladi was arrested at the end of August 2013 and only one week later at the beginning of September 2013 sentenced to 30 months in prison for “proselytizing”111. False accusations, the short time of the judicial proceedings and the brutal way the police arrested him represented the main controversy of the case (AMDH 2014).

AMDH (2014) stated that due to the sensibility of the case, among domestic NGOs, it was forced to work alone on this case. Apart from Christian organisations that reacted almost immediately,112 AMDH called El Baladi’s conviction and sentencing a violation of Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Amnesty International (2014) joined the case due to the unfair trial conducted with El Baladi and stated that El Baladi’s hearing was irregular (trial lasted only a week). Contrary to the new 2011 Constitution, that should have inherently provided a fair trial and presumption of innocence to the accused person. AMDH sent 11 lawyers to solve the case. El Baladi was liberated February 6, 2014 due to the lack of evidence.

Even if the case attracted international media, it did not mobilize public opinion and human rights advocates in such an extent as other cases. “This case was related to our religion, Islam, and it is sensitive topic not only for domestic human rights advocates, but also for international actors. Most of the time they do not want to intervene in such cases” claimed E. P. (2014) in reaction to my question why the networking in this case almost did not appear.

(f) Teenagers From Nador The case of the teenagers from the conservative city Nador in very North of Morocco, like Anouzla’s case, raised a wave of disorders not only inside the Moroccan society, but captured

108 Supra note 88. 109 Her whole article is available online at: http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/apr/17/el-haqed- morocco-hip-hop-revolutionary. 110 Freedom to express everyone’s beliefs freely and liberally, the concept generally includes also freedom to change religion or not to follow any religion (UDHR 1948: Article 18). 111 Supra note 78. 112 For example Moroccan Christians in diaspora.

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the international attention as well.113 The reaction had been almost immediate, intense and it brought a positive result in quite a short time (E. P. 2014).

The mobilisation of domestic and international communities was conducted mainly through web social networks (Facebook, Twitter), which helped a lot to spread the information as fast as possible (E. P. 2014). So-called kiss-in actions were organized all over Europe (in France, in Spain) to express support for teenagers. Members of the Moroccan human rights organisation MALI launched the same action outside the Moroccan parliament in Rabat. Amnesty International besides publishing a special press release 114 , together with AMDH publicly supported kiss-in actions. “It was really interesting. Young people went to the streets and protested in a different way, by kissing, just to say if I am kissing, that’s my right, and I should not be jailed for it” (Amnesty International 2014). Above that AMDH (2014) sent its special lawyers to help solve the case. CNDH and OMDH also joined the action. OMDH (2014) stressed that something like imprisonment for the expression of sentiments should not appear, it does not make sense. It also denominated prosecutor’s actions as an error, which should not be repeated anymore.

Thanks to the perceptible international pressure (solidarity actions, media), the case was resolved surprisingly quickly. The modern media played a crucial role serving as a platform for sharing information and mobilisation of public opinion and public shame.115 E. P. (2014) claimed “[i]t was different kind of protesting, Morocco experienced that for the first time. Online protests, supported from other (European) countries, were strong and surely helped to liberate these teenagers”. He also did not wonder that the case did achieved international acclaim; he commented it by the fact that the absurdity of the whole case surely had to attract the international attention.

Table G. Summary of the Cases Studied Name Quality of a Message Punishment (Severity) Networking Ali Anouzla Critics of the regime (A) Grave-imprisonment Yes Rachid Niny Critics of the regime (A) Grave-imprisonment Yes Mustapha El Hasnaoui Critics of the regime (A) Grave-imprisonment Yes El Haqed Critics of the regime (A) Grave-imprisonment Yes Mohamed El Baladi Questioning religion – individual Charges dropped Yes freedoms exercising (B) Teenagers From Nador Questioning religion, tradition - Charges dropped Yes individual freedoms exercising (B)

113 See for example: http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2013/10/teenage-kiss-arrests-spark-furore- morocco-2013102282027588248.html. 114 Whole release is available online at: http://www.amnesty.org.uk/press-releases/morocco-should-drop-absurd- charges-against-teenagers-arrested-kissing. 115 Moroccan NGO MALI created a Facebook page where the people posted the photos of them while kissing, to support the teenagers. On the twitter the information has been published under hashtag #FreeBoussa (free kiss in Arabic) or #Nadorkiss. The movement Anonymous took the initiative as well, see more: http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2013/11/20/-nadorkiss- anonymoustakeonmoroccanauthoritiesoverkissingcase.html.

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4 DISCUSSION

To answer my research questions I discuss the results of my field research and if I find it convenient I relate these to relevant literature. I seek to provide an analysis of a section of social reality, an analysis of human rights advocacy networks triggered to assist freedom of expression causes in Morocco. Beyond plain answers to my research questions, I also discuss unexpected and controversial facts that I encountered during my research. That is why I do not only disclose flat data, but I also aspire to provide vivid and gripping image on the issue I studied. With respect to my findings I however do not aspire to draw any conclusions of general validity.

My field research results suggest that Moroccans have their freedom of expression clearly limited (section 4.1). These results also show that in case the State sanctions a particular expression, human rights advocates bounce back such repressive steps of its authorities (section 4.2). The strategies they use to defend individual freedom of expression depend on several variables I discuss below (section 4.3). Following that, I investigate why the advocates involved in a particular case and the strategies they implemented varied (section 4.4). While gathering my data I found that these advocates cooperate to pursue their common goals. That is how they create human rights advocacy networks (section 4.5). In addition to the foregoing, I made a couple of remarks (unintended) on role of media in human rights advocacy (section 4.6). To finish with I contemplated about applicability of Risse’s theory (section 4.7) and the limits of my research and suggest ideas for further research within the sphere of human rights advocacy mechanisms (section 4.8).

4.1 DID MOROCCAN AUTHORITIES SANCTION INDIVIDUALS EXERCISING THEIR FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION?

With respect to this truly vague question, I speculated that it strictly depends on the perspective of the actor whether he considers certain authoritative sanctions against the individual or a violation of freedom of expression vested upon an individual. That is why I argue that the first step towards creation of any advocacy body is the recognition of such violations. The second is adequate labelling of such violations. In terms of subjective perspectives on quality of freedom of expression I briefly looked into (a) perceptions of authorities, (b) perceptions of individual human rights advocates and last but not least (c) perceptions of some individuals from Moroccan society.

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(a) Perspective of Authorities

Inasmuch as I did not succeed to gather sufficient data to analyse the Government’s subjective perception of its freedom of expression politics116, I figured out what the subjective perspective was from its actual steps in the cases I examined (consult Table D).

 The authorities accused Ali Anouzla and Mustapha El Hasnaoui pursuant to the Anti- Terrorist Statute number 03-03.

 The individuals within remaining targeted cases were accused under the Moroccan Penal Code.

o The journalist Rachid Niny and the rapper El-Haqed were sentenced for offending public officials and State institutions (Articles 263, 264, 265 and 266 of the Penal Code117).

o Mohamed El Baladi was accused of proselytizing (Article 220 of the Penal Code118).

o Teenagers from Nador were accused of causing public nuisance (Articles 483 and 484 of the Penal Code119).

The authorities approached the individuals for breaking plain law (the Anti-Terrorist Statute and the Penal Code), but did not apprehend the potential encroachment of the respective individuals’ freedom of expression. They never officially mentioned that freedom of expression had to be taken into account in any of the aforementioned cases.

Furthermore, my civil society informant E. P. (2014) saw the problem in Moroccan legislative system and law interpretation, because “[a]uthorities always try to find another excuse for the punishment in cases related to freedom of expression. Especially when dealing with sensitive issues as monarchy, tradition or religion. Moroccan legislation, especially the inconsistencies between the individual laws and new Constitutional guarantees, allows them to do it”.

To conclude on this, I reckon that the Government regards any activity of the individual who exercises his freedom of expression beyond the boundaries of the common as an actual and direct threat to the values protected by the Penal Code, Anti-Terrorist Statute, etc. The authorities victimise such individuals for expressing the ideas and thought that masses do

116 Since the Government and its authoritative bodies do not all share same voice, I could not deduce any general perspectives of the authorities. I only learnt that freedom of expression is guaranteed. 117 Supra note 71, 72, 73, 76. 118 Supra note 79. 119 Supra note 82, 83.

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not normally operate with, but do not admit that they persecuted the individuals for expressing simply too much of their opinion.

(b) Perspective of Advocates

I reckon that there are two kinds of human rights advocates according to a point of view. The first kind holds that freedom of expression is being violated by Moroccan authorities, while the second kind do not. AMDH and Amnesty International Morocco reckon that authorities regularly sanction individuals who express their opinion. These advocates reported most of such cases (particularly if an individual was persecuted for expressing the ideas in media). On the other hand, OMDH and CNDH claimed that they did not observe any noticeable cases of the freedom of expression abuses recently. That is why I argue that these perceptions depend on individual NGO’s qualities. I focus on these in the following section.

(c) Perspective of Moroccan Society

Considering that Moroccan society is strongly influenced by religion and tradition, I argue that it is not thoroughly opened to any expressions that contradict its inherent social, cultural and religious norms. Taking into account the case of the Teenagers from Nador, not authorities, but conservative individuals felt outraged because of the youngsters who kissed each other in public. Owing to a 2014 music video clip where girls from Nador (wearing hijab) danced and smiled, Nador citizens were recently outraged again.120 The same scenario applied to Mohamed El Baladi who was condemned by people from another conservative city of Fes, for proselytizing children although he only converted to Christianity.

All of these individuals exercised their freedom of expression in the conservative regions of the country. I suppose that if they did so in different place (e.g. in more liberal city such as Rabat), they would have not received as much attention. Local population did not consider these cases a violation of freedom of expression; they rather thought of it as inadmissible recoil from the traditions.

With respect to the aforementioned I argue that a degree of societal openness to adopt the norms is an important condition for the amelioration of human rights conditions in the country. The prejudices rooted in tradition, culture or religion may complicate human rights socialization. Risse et al. (1999) call these blocking factors.

In contrast to conservative spheres of society, many young Moroccans understood the targeted cases differently. With the help of the internet and easier access to education, the greater

120 See the whole story available online at: http://www.telquel-online.com/content/nador-la-vid%C3%A9o- %C2%AB-happy-%C2%BB-devient-une-affaire-de-justice.

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part of the new Moroccan generation thought that the freedom of expression was oppressed. They adhered to a somewhat western approach to human rights.

4.2 DID HUMAN RIGHTS ADVOCATES BOUNCE THE AUTHORITIES BACK?

My results demonstrate that targeted advocates responded to discussed oppressions of freedom of expression. Although a general pattern indicates that all of them bounce the authorities back, this assertion does not have universal validity. Some advocates counteracted the authorities in certain cases, but not in the other. In addition to the results I offered in my findings I provide a brief summary in the Table H below.

Table H. Summary: Participation of the Targeted NGOs in the Cases Studied AMDH Amnesty International Morocco CNDH OMDH

Ali Anouzla ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ Mustapha El Hasnaoui ✓ ✓ Rachid Niny ✓ ✓ ✓

El-Haqed ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ Mohamed El Baladi ✓ ✓ Teenagers From Nador ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓

Even though I had my original assumptions about Moroccan human rights advocacy confirmed, I raised further - more specific - questions to put light on the issue. Therefore I discuss the answers precisely articulated questions: WHAT strategies did they apply? and WHY did the advocates involved in studied cases and strategies applied by them differ?

4.3 WHAT STRATEGIES DID THEY APPLY?

Targeted advocates all applied a variety of strategies to promote selected cases of punitive measures against the individuals exercising their freedom of expression. As it is apparent from Table I below that some advocates employ more strategies (out of the predefined set of strategies) than others. I have already devoted a whole section 3.3 to the description of strategies implemented within studied cases (for the list of strategies consult Table C) and that is why I now move on to briefly evaluate these strategies.

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Table I. Summary: Targeted NGOs and Strategies They Applied Investigation Report Legal Mobilizing of Lobbying Peaceful Boycotts publishing assistance public opinion manifestations

AMDH ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ Amnesty ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ International

CNDH ✓ ✓ ✓ OMDH ✓ ✓ ✓

From what I have learnt, I consider strategy of gathering relevant case information (investigation) a crucial tact for the whole process of case advocacy. Unless advocates had sufficient and precise case data, they would not be capable of accomplishing any steadily successful human rights promotion of studied cases.

Following case investigation interviewed advocates regularly publish reports. In contrast to investigations of a case, report publishing is oriented outwards; with the help of reports advocates disseminate crucial case information on (domestic) public. Some sampled advocates tend to trigger international advocacy networks as well. That is why they advance the reports to neighbouring countries or worldwide. 121 I agree with Welch (2001) 122 and Keck and Sikkink (1998) 123 who see the major role of NGOs in identifying, documenting, denouncing and spreading information about human rights violations. I found that sampled advocates precisely did so in the cases I studied.

It also turned out that naming and shaming strategies (mobilisation of public opinion, mobilisation of public shame) were indispensable for some of targeted advocates. Amnesty International (2014) and AMDH (2014) saw a mobilisation of public shame as an essential strategy to stage pressure on the Government. Similar to the latter two strategies naming and shaming strategies were handled as twofold method that might stimulate both public opinion of domestic population (internal scope) and activities of fellow advocates or the Governments of other states (transnational or international scope). Risse et al. (1999: 37-38) contend that as much as the particular State cares about its international image, that it responds to pressures that urge for human rights conformity. That is why if the naming and shaming strategy is properly applied,

121 Amnesty International (2014), for example, published all its reports on its web page. Amnesty concentrates on a wider public. It also stated that most of its reports are quite shaming about the human rights situation in the particular countries. The reason is to attract (regional or international) attention. 122 Welch (2001: 10) also concluded that the increased recognition of NGOs may be seen in their ability to gather and provide information. 123 Keck and Sikkink (1998) saw as one of the key tactics of transnational advocacy networks the informal politics Keck and Sikkink provide typology of transnational advocacy networks’ tactics in their book Activists beyond Borders. These are informal, symbolic, leverage and accountability tactics.

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it helps to itch transnational and international actors. These in turn are capable to developed institutionalized external pressure to a Government that does not abide human rights adequately.

Along with aforesaid strategies, interviewed NGOs regularly lobby for the causes they pursue. The lobbying strategy however varies in accordance with the range of influence of individual advocates. CNDH and OMDH lobbied the Moroccan authorities, negotiated with the Government officials or with particular Ministries. Besides domestic lobbying, Moroccan mass membership advocate AMDH and global Amnesty International, together with other external advocates, pulled the strings of foreign human rights friendly Governments or contacted their fellow foreign advocates to do that as well.124

Peaceful demonstrations were not organized by the advocates that often. Only AMDH made the use of such strategy. MALI organized kiss-in action (which transformed to peaceful demonstration outside Moroccan parliament in Rabat) to express sympathies with Teenagers from Nador. Popular 20th February movement organized quite a few marches to support Ali Anouzla and El-Haqed. This movement is, however, not recognized as a proper NGO up to now. Boycotts were not organized in any of the analysed cases.

Only one of the sampled NGOs provided a direct legal assistance to sanctioned victims; only AMDH furnished a legal assistance. It did so to support Mohamed El Baladi and the Teenagers from Nador. Welch (2001: 10) distinguished two kinds of human rights NGOs: a) those that pursue development and arrange for direct assistance (humanitarian aid, food supplies, etc.) and b) those that concentrate on advocacy work (education, monitoring, bouncing authorities back and occasional legal assistance). AMDH clearly falls within the characteristics of the latter kind. The other sampled NGOs, however, do not provide any direct aid to neither victims of their (in)admissible expression, nor to individuals whose other rights and freedoms had been encroached upon.

124Amnesty international sent numerous lobbying letters to Moroccan ministries on behalf of Ali Anouzla. Reporters without borders sent a letter to U.S. Secretary General John Kerry in March 2014 concerning the Ali Anouzla case and issue of freedom of information, asking him to discuss this issue with Moroccan authorities during his visit in Rabat in April 2014. You can find the whole letter on Reporters without Borders website, available online at: http://en.rsf.org/morocco-letter-to-john-kerry-about-freedom-03-04-2014,46070.html.

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4.4 WHY THE ADVOCATES AND THEIR STRATEGIES VARY FROM CASE TO CASE?

With respect to the statements I proclaimed in previous sections, I argue that the advocates involved in a particular case and the strategies they make use of vary considerably. It strictly depends on factors that are both dependent on a particular advocate’s will (internal factors) and dependent on the inherent qualities of a case (factors external to the advocates). I have already delineated these factors from a theoretical perspective (see subsection 1.3.5).

4.4.1 FACTORS INTERNAL TO ADVOCATES

There are a couple of NGO-dependent determinants that predestine whether a particular advocate would respond to the case of a sanctioned individual. I argue that these are the particular NGO’s typical agenda and a scope of its mandate. Furthermore I reckon that quality of applied strategies (and whole case scenario strategy) of all sampled NGOs also relied upon these determinants.

First, all interviewed NGOs proclaimed to have universal human rights agenda (consult Table E). They could have all taken part in promoting all of the studied cases. They however apparently did not do that. The fact that an emergent case falls within the agenda of a particular advocate turned out not to be a core determinant of this advocate´s mobilization. The advocate’s agenda only allows for its activation on a case, but it does not dictate that advocate to endorse such a case. Plainly written, I found that the NGOs do not necessarily respond to all cases where their agenda overlaps with the rights or freedom on a particular individual sanctioned. I will not pay further attention to the role of agendas as a determinant.

Second, I determined three aspects of NGO’s mandate that impact NGO’s activities. Equipped with the results of my research I argue that a kind of membership, a level of independence and territorial scope of NGO’s activities (consult Table E) influence not only NGO’s mobilization to promote a certain case, but also the strategies it employs to attain its intended goal. These aspects of advocacy mandate are closely related to each other, but as far as I am concerned, a level of dependence of a particular NGO on the Government or any other authoritative figure determines advocacy mobilization and applied strategies predominantly. To support this argument I use the word of my civil society respondent: “[i]n Morocco we have two kinds of human rights NGOs. First, there are NGOs affiliated to the Government. They primarily justify what the Government did or did not. They do not work in the human rights field. The second type of NGOs do a real work, they react on the freedom of expression oppressions by posting regular reports, mobilizing public opinion or

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organizing peaceful demonstrations” (E. P. 2014). Thereafter I delineated two crucial kinds of sampled NGOs:

(a) Dependent Advocates

NGOs that are built to have a good relationship with the Government, did neither immediately mobilize to respond to punitive measures within studied cases, nor did they employed tough strategies to promote such cases.

CNDH (2014) is a typical national agency with elitist membership and national range of activities. CNDH was established to control human rights situation in the country and to consult its violations with the Government, and this is exactly what CNDH did in the cases I studied. It was indeed difficult to retrieve any additional, valuable data from CNDH. In contrast to CNDH, OMDH (2014) proclaimed that it is an independent advocate. It, however, maintained close relations with the authorities. OMDH perceived itself as an elitist organisation with an international scope of activities. During the interview OMDH assured me that it advocates victimized individuals in studied cases eagerly. From other data I collected I could not arrive to such conclusion. Inasmuch as OMDH did not participate on solidarity campaigns or peaceful demonstrations, I do not think that it had been that eager to support these victims.

If CNDH and OMDH do have an interest in a particular case, they start investigating it. Within the interview they both held that they evaluate all features of the cases and consequent sanctions properly. Only after such procedures could they discuss their findings and suggestions to the authorities. However most of the time they do not go beyond sole discussion with the Government´s officials.

With respect to the aforementioned facts, I learned that a level of independence substantially predefines what case a particular NGO can and cannot promote. OMDH and CNDH were more or less limited in employing the available strategies to promote a case, too. To continue with, the elitists NGOs prefer to investigate and discuss the case then promote the protection of a victim with the use of different strategies. OMDH (2014) informed me that the academics, lawyers and other intellectuals do not aspire to solve human rights inadequacies with street manifestations, they rather negotiate as adults do. Lastly, a territorial scope of the NGO´s activities did not have a visible impact on NGO´s involvement or activities within studied cases. Although OMDH aspires to be an international human rights advocate, most of the time it operates only within domestic sphere. It only lobbied national authorities (see Ali Anouzla or Rachid Niny case).

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(b) Independent Advocates

In contrast to authorities-dependent NGOs, the independent advocates responded to more cases of freedom of expression oppressions and exercised a whole variety of strategies to attain its advocacy objective.

AMDH (2014) is a mass organisation that regularly opposes Moroccan authorities and pushes the cases it advocates into international arena. It also capitalizes contacts with other regional advocates that act transnationally to ameliorate situation in Morocco. AMDH had participated in all the cases I examined. Furthermore, it acknowledged me that it was willing to use all available means that would require to bounce the punitive measures that conflict with human rights guarantees. I still wonder whether AMDH thought to really use all available means or it only stressed that their existent strategies could intense. Anyway, to support Ali Anouzla, Rachid Niny, El-Haqed or the Teenagers from Nador, AMDH employed all spectrum of strategies that I defined in Table C. Similar to AMDH, Amnesty International (2014) is also mass membership NGO. It regards itself as an independent advocate that gives way to internationalization of universal human rights discourse.

The role of the Moroccan section of Amnesty International is ambivalent. It investigated sanctions against freedom of expression (even within concrete cases), but it did not take direct part in promotion of actual cases. All activities were conducted by the General Secretary of Amnesty International in London. The local office neither published any personalized report, nor lobbied under its own mandate. During the interview the Moroccan section of Amnesty International spoke on behalf of the whole organisation. I therefore could not draw a straight line between Amnesty International based in Rabat and based in London. The activities of human rights advocates that regularly oppose the Government (AMDH Amnesty International and many others) show that these advocates are easier to mobilize and they also employ a wider variety of strategies. First, mass membership NGOs are able to respond to a great amount of emergent cases. There, however remains a question to respond – whether the number of cases they work on do not decrease the quality of the promotion and protection of individual victims of the State’s punitive measures. Furthermore, they are capable of launching immediate massive campaigns to advocate the victims. Second, as they are independent from the State and any of its authorities, they can employ whole variety of potential strategies to score a point against the State. That is how they assist and support their victimized clients. To sum it up, speaking of independent advocates, the quality and number of a particular advocate’s members influence the variety and amount of cases to which an advocate can respond. Although a NGO is composed of a great number of members, it can still bounce the authorities back rapidly and persuasively.

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In addition to that both sampled NGOs operate within the international arena; they embrace the chances of international cooperation exhaustively. While I consider membership and level of advocacy independence as decisive factors (they determine scope of NGO’s activities in advance), a wide geopolitical range of advocacy activities allows concrete NGO to challenge the Government from outside of its territory. It only depends on the qualities of a case, whether it does so.

4.4.2 FACTORS EXTERNAL TO ADVOCATES

That is why I now focus on the factors that do not rest upon the will of a particular advocate. I argue that hand in hand with the previously analysed factors (see subsection 4.4.1) a content of a message expressed by a sanctioned individual and the severity of punitive measures he received not only impact potential mobilization of NGOs to advocate an emergent victim of his expression, but also affect scenario strategies the NGO employs to protect a victim, and to promote his case.

First I argue that a content of an expressed message predetermines the quality of an authoritative punitive measure to some extent.

 Ali Anouzla, Mustapha El Hasnaoui, Rachid Niny or El-Haqed all had two things in common. They all articulated messages (to certain degree) directed against the authorities. 125 In response to their messages they have all been arrested and subsequently imprisoned. They received grave sentences.

 In contrast to that, both Teenagers from Nador and Mohamed El Baladi did not criticize authorities, but (in somewhat different way) they questioned public Moroccan taboos.126 Although they have been arrested and could have earned heavy sentences, the authorities consequently ceased procedures against these individuals.

Similarly tuned violations encountered similarly severe sanctions. Critics of the authorities (whether the King, the Monarchy, the Government or other public officials) met up with more intense punitive measures than the individuals who exercised their private freedoms. Besides already mentioned cases, I also refer to the cases reported by Freedom House in recent years; Walid Bahomane, Abdul-Samad al-Haidour, Mohamed Sokrate or Mohamed al-Dawas were all

125 Ali Anouzla criticized the King, Mustapha El Hasnaoui questioned the judicial practices against Islamists, Rachid Niny and Al-Haqed criticized and offended public officials (consult Table D). To strengthen my argument, for example the above-discussed case of Walid Bahomane also implies that the messages conducted in opposition to the regime are penalized more severely. Supra note 63. 126 Teenagers from Nador scandalized conservative Moroccan society by the kissing on the public places (questioning of the religion that forbids the intimate relationship between man and woman before marriage). Mohamed El Baladi converted from Islam, already by this act he challenged the leading and the only religion in Morocco.

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prosecuted and subsequently imprisoned for expressions critical of public taboos and the authorities. I indeed did not come across a case where an individual would receive a jail sentence for publicly exercising message of private nature.

Speaking of NGOs’ activity and strategies used in individual cases, I argue that content of a message and severity of a case do influence NGO’s activity. It, however, does not impact advocate scenario strategies in such extent that I could draw some general conclusions from that.

 Some NGOs employed all available (peaceful) strategies to promote the cases of Ali Anouzla, Rachid Niny, El-Haqed and Teenagers from Nador (see table F). Sampled advocates did not lobby anybody only in the case of the Teenagers from Nador. It was due to the fact that whole case evolved rapidly and before they could try to lobby, the case was essentially won. The advocates thus did not have sufficient time and space to use the spectrum of their potential strategies. Inasmuch as they succeeded in their goal, they did not even need to carry a human rights promotion in this case.

 In contrast to that, NGOs failed to employ their advanced strategies to support Mohamed El Baladi and Mustapha El Hasnaoui. They neither mobilized public opinion, lobbied nor organized peaceful manifestations.

Despite the fact that the Teenagers from Nador did not express any message that would directly and actually criticise authorities, they probably received the most attention (when compared to other studied case). The effort of individual advocates that one with the other looked down on the sanctioning authorities, and immediately commenced a common campaign to support the kids, borne the fruits. On contrary, Mustapha El Hasnaoui, who is still in prison, did not get that much attention. Neither advocates mobilized, nor those who advocated him employed all available strategies that could have influenced severity of the potential sanction.

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4.5 DID THE ADVOCATES CREATE NETWORKS TO RESPOND THE STATE OPPRESSIONS?

The advocates bounced the authorities back.127 With respect to my findings, I maintain that the advocacy networks were established in all the cases I have studied128 as long as the State had sanctioned individual freedom of expression and the targeted advocates had responded to such sanctions. The fact that networks were triggered, does not reveal much about their qualities. Therefore I formulated clear-cut supplementary research questions. I thus asked: What conditions does networking depend on? Which advocates are likely to create networks and which are not? How is the practice of networking related to particular advocacy strategies applied in concrete cases? and Why did the practice of networking differ through the spectre of advocates and cases struggled with?

4.5.1 WHAT CONDITIONS DOES NETWORKING DEPEND ON?

Some of the sampled NGOs maintain sole daily contacts that are independent on any human rights violation (for example AMDH and CNDH, or OMDH and CNDH, Amnesty International and OMDH). These mutually managed unions might have a considerable effect on the activation of the network in case unacceptable sanctions against the individual exercising his freedom of expression arrives into the advocates’ attention. The other potentially strong determinant of the network might have been sharing of common financing or cooperation on a specific grant. I, however, did not acquire any data that would indicate this was a case in relations among my sample advocates. I thus only inquired some of determinants of network activation in a particular case of oppression. Such prime determinants are (a) the Sanctioning State and (b) Advocacy Response.

(a) The Sanctioning State

Only if the State or its authorities sanction an individual for his legally (in)admissible activities, the advocates have a chance to trigger advocacy network to support the victim of the authoritatively imposed punitive measure. This is the reason why I argue that a sanction is an essential precondition for activation of a network.

I observed advocacy networks in all the studied cases. Some domestic networks were, to support the victim, created immediately after an individual had been accused. Such cases

127 I have already embarked upon the realm of advocacy networks in the previous subsections (see section 3.4.2). 128 Domestic human rights advocates were regularly powerless to generate a change in the Government’s human rights abusing techniques. Solitary report publishing did not have any effects unless any other NGOs, the Government agencies, other States or international organizations started handling the case and developed the respective pressures to influence the undesirable situation.

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triggered transnational or international advocacy networks promptly.129 The other cases did not receive that much (nor domestic, neither international) attention. 130 Inspired by factors that influence the advocacy strategies in a particular case I discuss whether i) a content of a message expressed by an accused/sanctioned individual and ii) severity of a punitive measure influence the constitution of advocacy networks.

i) First, my results show that a content of a message did not have that crucial impact on activation of advocacy networks. Ali Anouzla, Rachid Niny and El Haqed criticised the State for its ill-founded politics, lack of transparency and ubiquitous corruption. The networks to support these activists were activated. On the other hand, Mustapha El Hasnaoui prompted a message with identic content; no immediate networks were triggered to protest against his imprisonment. Advocacy networks supported the Teenagers from Nador (public kissing) who questioned public taboos, but they defended Mohamed El Baladi (alleged proselytizer) only to some extent.

ii) Second, I argue that severity of a punitive measure influences the activation of advocacy networks. Owing to his critical works Ali Anouzla had been sanctioned in recent years repeatedly. He was warned by the authorities and he had been fined a few times also. With respect to the severity of penalties131, I consider the punishments he received as relatively light forms of punitive measures (these were mostly fines). Until he was imprisoned in 2013 (a grave form of punishment), he did not receive much attention, neither from individual advocates, nor from their networks. Building on that, if punitive measures, that an individual had been awarded, were grave, advocacy networks activated almost immediately. The same applies to the cases of the Teenagers from Nador, Rachid Niny or El-Haqed. My argument however does not fit the advocacy practise in cases of Mustapha El Hasnaoui and Mohamed El Baladi. El Hasnaoui served his sentence in prison for more than six month (a grave punishment case) before international advocacy network mobilized in March 2014.132 Furthermore, networks had barely been initiated in support El Baladi.

It is apparent from the abovementioned that neither the content of a message, nor the severity of actual punitive measures, indicate definite determinants for the activation of an advocacy network. I reckon that severe punitive measures against individuals that express their

129 For example Ali Anouzla, Teenagers from Nador. 130 The cases of Mohamed El Baladi or Mustapha El Hasnaoui. 131 Consult the division of the cases according to the severity of punishment I provided in subsection 1.3.5. 132 Regionally ANHRI worked on El Hasnaoui’s case from the beginning.

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thoughts openly, regularly mobilize the advocacy network. I now move on to discuss common advocacy network response to a sanction imposed upon such individuals.

(b) Advocacy Response

I argue that there are three determinants that influence mobilization and the quality of advocacy network. These are i) a number of individual advocates that work on actual case, ii) an overlap of the agenda and mandate of such NGOs, and iii) a level of mutual (daily) cooperation among the respective NGOs.

i) The higher number of advocates that pursue protection of freedom of expression in an individual case, the higher chance the network is mobilized and steadily grows. To back my arguments with real data I provide following examples:

 More than 60 world’s human rights advocates called for liberation of Ali Anouzla. Such a number of advocates formed a functional network that promoted a case internationally; or was it a network that gathered that many advocates to support victimized Anouzla? Likewise, the networks were established to support Teenagers from Nador.

 In contrast to that, not too many advocates went after El Hasnaoui’s case. Hence the network was very hard to mobilize. Only in 2014 an additional few advocates sought the case and the network to support El Hasnaoui was put into motion.

ii) Concrete NGOs operate within their usual agenda and employ techniques that fall within their predefined mandate. The higher correspondence of agenda placement and predefined mandate of potentially cooperating advocates, the higher probability of their common response to an inadequate punitive measure. That is how these advocates create networks. I have already discussed this issue in a previous section; hence I will now elaborate on this briefly:

 In practice NGOs having similar mandates used similar strategies (see discussion above). The quality of mandate of a particular advocate also exposes his motives for networking. For example AMDH and Amnesty International as mass-based independent advocates call for help abroad. Or in contrast to that, CNDH rather approaches the Government to consult a case that has just surfaced. My argument however is based only on an analysis of the few NGOs that I interviewed.

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 AMDH actually strived for liberation of Mohamed El Baladi for quite a time alone.133 From the data I gathered, it ensues that other domestic NGOs did not cover a religion within their agenda, they did not claim a mandate to solicit religious freedom with any of their means (OMDH, CNDH), nor did they want to intervene in such sensitive question of domestic nature (Amnesty International).

iii) Advocacy response (and its quality as well) is predetermined by a level of mutual (daily) cooperation of the potentially cooperating advocates, too. If the mutual cooperation between the advocates is frequent, probability that they create a common advocacy response is higher. This argument is relevant even if such advocates do not cooperate solely on sanctions against freedom of expression, but on other human rights causes. I thus uphold that a frequent mutual cooperation of certain advocates has a significant impact on formation of networks in the cases I studied. However I stress that advocates that engaged in studied networks were not necessarily same; composition of the network in reviewed cases differed.

 In practice most advocates try to act as fast as they can, but their potential cooperation also depends on the quality of a message pursued by a victim or the severity of the punitive measure. That is why the composition of networks differs from case to case.

The daily-basis cooperation, however, do not necessarily trigger network advocacy. For example, Mohamed El Baladi was supported only by AMDH, even though AMDH had very tight relations with other (domestic, regional, international) advocates. So far, I did not clearly determine what factors designate the activation of a network in a particular case. Therefore I carry on answering the following questions.

4.5.2 WHICH ADVOCATES ARE LIKELY TO CREATE NETWORKS AND WHICH ARE NOT?

I plead that engagement of individual advocate in a network depends on the qualities of that advocate. Looking at the data I gathered, I argue that the independent advocates engaged in advocacy networks more often than the advocates affiliated with the Government or any of its authorities.

133 Side by side with Christian NGOs. I consider this case as a case with limited networking, because none of my research sample NGOs, except AMDH, did not intervene in El Baladi case.

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Advocates that maintain a good relation with the Government act for the most part within national or regional scopes; these are elitist institutes that pursue human rights promotion, but not that much of actual protection. They keep stable relations and partnerships with other national, regional and international human rights advocates. They, however, do not embrace such relations in cases where an individual had been inadequately sanctioned. With respect to freedom of expression oppressions CNDH and OMDH rarely called for help abroad. They did not regularly engaged in existing networks.

In contrast to that, AMDH and Amnesty International repeatedly cooperated on their reports and campaigns that informed mobilized public opinion, called for support of external actors or international community as a whole. These actors preferred to combine a pressure from below and from above (consult Risse et al. 1999: 18). From below refers to domestic lobbying and mobilization of masses through naming and shaming strategy. These masses from the Moroccan society are being informed about the violating practices of authorities and dished the opinion that the Government is abusing its powers to oppress individual’s rights and freedoms. From above refers to dissemination of information on cases of authoritative punitive measures outside of Morocco. Such diffusion of named and labelled cases invokes further interest of human rights advocates that act transnationally or on international basis. From time to time the advocacy networks project pilot cases to the Governments of the other states as well. They request for help with the protection of individual’s right to freedom of expression. The other Governments act in name of such protection of sanctioned individuals only scarcely (as far as I am concerned none of the studied cases were promoted by any foreign Government). I also reckon that Amnesty International is a key advocate that activates the networks in Morocco. It apparently benefits from its whole human rights agenda and international mass membership to disseminate the information in Morocco and other countries. It also prompts for further transnational or international support within the cases it works on.

4.5.3 LINKS BETWEEN FORMATION OF NETWORK AND STRATEGIES EMPLOYED?

The last question is related to the relations between NGOs’ strategies applied in a particular case and a mobilization of an advocacy network. I specifically wondered whether a particular strategy implemented onto a case triggers the creation of a network, and vice versa does network advocacy predestine appliance of chosen strategies?

With respect to data (see sections 3.3 and 3.4) and arguments (consult sections 4.4 and 4.5), I argue that internal and external factors impact not only the scenario of

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strategies, but also predetermine the creation of advocacy networks. I found that a particular NGO’s agenda and mandate in combination with a quality of content of expressed message and a severity of authoritative punitive measure might bring advocacy network into being.

Advocates that prefer negotiating with national authorities or lobbying the Government’s officials did not join in to establish effective advocacy networks. Since they neither published case reports; aspire to mobilise public opinion; or lobbied other transnational advocates or international actors, they did not logically need to enforce their voice in an advocacy network. I support my argument with the following practical examples:

 AMDH, Amnesty International and other domestic and international human rights advocates mobilized public opinion and public shame, lobbied outside the country and attracted the attention of wider human rights advocates to support Ali Anouzla and Teenagers from Nador. All involved advocates created a well-functioning network.

 In contrast to that, OMDH and CNDH were not that willing to become a member of a network. They rather attain their goals as solitary players only by expressing scarce public statements and roundtable lobby.

 Despite the fact that none of NGOs employed enhanced strategies to support Mustapha El Hasnaoui or Walid Bahomane, advocacy networks still emerged. For instance, the El Hansaoui’s case was altered radically at the beginning of 2014 with the involvement of the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention that recommended his immediate and unconditional release.134 Within the interview AMDH affirmed that it did not aspire to initiate a network to support Mohamed El Baladi, but a network was spontaneously established after the Christian NGOs took park in promotion of his case. Walid Bahomane did not receive much attention from NGOs, but he became publicly known owing to a quick dissemination of his sanctions within the social media (this issue will be discussed below).

134 The case got more attention in May 2014. On 20 May 2014 Amnesty International published information that El Hasnaoui was currently on a hunger strike in protest at his ongoing three years prison term. Whole report available online at: http://www.amnesty.org/en/news/morocco-stop-using-terrorism-pretext-imprison-journalists- 2014-05-20.

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4.6 THE ROLE OF MEDIA

I reckon that my arguments on internal and external factors that dictate whether to mobilize a particular case and what strategies to employ are valid (see section 4.4). As it is obvious from the abovementioned, I did not succeed in finding a key factor that predetermines mobilization of a network in a particular case. Therefore I assume that none of the previously delineated factors was so universal that I would call it a leading constituent of advocacy activation in all the examined cases.

Even though I could easily be convinced with the results I provided in previous sections, I point out a couple of cases that do not fit into my scheme tightly. I indicated that Walid Bahomane, Abdul-Samad al-Haidour, Mohamed Sokrate and others were not massively supported by cooperating NGOs, but advocacy networks were formed anyway. In these cases, advocacy networks did not depend on individual advocates, neither on their activity, nor on their previous mutual cooperation. I therefore engaged into further research to find that the public media and social networks played an increasing role in the constitution of human rights advocacy nowadays.

The media emerged as both an advocacy actor and a dynamic gateway that advocates or civil society activists used to spread the news and inform the public. I consider this trend an important quality of contemporary information-based society. With the help of media and social networks, NGOs might strengthen their voice and influence beyond their prior territories. Modern social media, online journals, blogs, etc. not only rapidly diffuse case information (and its advocacy interpretation) to further corners of Moroccan society, but they also serve as a platform for prompt mobilisation of both public opinion and human rights advocates (creation of human rights advocacy networks).135 If a particular case was already broadcasted in the media or talked about on social networks, I reckon that the advocacy network is likely to mobilize. Modern media undoubtedly fill the black holes of my research. Whenever I did not find a clear-cut explanation of investigated phenomena, I always thought that the media are missing a link of my reasoning.

For example, none of the interviewed human rights advocates mentioned that they would support Walid Bahomane who was sanctioned for the cartoon. I, however, found numerous international news articles 136 , online advocacy petitions on the internet. 137 A couple of international human rights advocates issued their statements on the internet as well.138

135 This is a case of the Arab Spring and the 20th February Movement. Activists were using Facebook, Twitter and other social network platforms to disperse case information, plan events, inform and mobilize a wider public (E. P. 2014). 136 For example see the article available at: http://www.afrik.com/article24790.html.

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Because of the speed with which information spread through the internet, Rubichon (2007: 15-18) pointed out that mediatisation of human rights discourse plays a central role that enable the advocacy. Media are thus providers of human rights forum; forum where the limits imposed of individual’s freedom of expression are hotly debated. Rubichon also emphasized that except for the pros of mediatisation of human rights, know its cons as well. The major risk of medial human rights discourse lies in a picky case approach and subsequent trivialisation of discussed topics.

4.7 CLOSING REMARKS: RISSE’S THEORY AND MY NETWORKS

Lastly, I briefly look into Risse’s assumption that a combination of pressure from below and from above do ease and ensure a success of human rights advocacy networks. I, however, do not aspire to evaluate effectiveness of studied advocacy networks. I rather focus on question whether Risse’s argument applies.

 Practically speaking Risse’s argument was valid with respect to the cases of Ali Anouzla and Teenagers from Nador. I found that sustainable pressure of public demonstrations on national grounds (AMDH, Amnesty International and the other NGOs) in connection with domestic lobbying (OMDH, CNDH and Amnesty International) strengthened by lobbying transnational advocates and international actors (AMDH, Amnesty International and other external actors) pushed the cases forward and accelerated prosecution and/or judicial procedure at least provisionally. Thereafter I reckon that Risse’s logic of factors that predetermine successful implementation of international human rights obligations would remain relevant even if related to human rights advocacy within actual singular cases where the Government encroached upon one’s freedom of expression.

 Rachid Niny and El-Haqed experienced different advocacy reality. Despite Rachid Niny did not attract that much attention in Morocco, he received much international attention. AMDH and Amnesty International together worked on his case. They aired the case to transnational advocates. As a result of that, international network had been activated (external pressure). AMDH and Amnesty International also generated internal pressure (public manifestations in both cases). One piece of the puzzle was, however, missing and that was a direct pressure to the authorities (the role played by authorities-dependent

137 Of course this was the HRW report, internet platform for human rights advocacy: http://advocacy.globalvoicesonline.org/2012/02/08/morocco-busted-for-posting-caricatures-of-the-king-on- facebook-2/, or a petition http://www.cartoonistsrights.org/recent_developments_article.php?id=30. 138 Reporters Without Borders issued an online article available at: http://en.rsf.org/morocco-authorities-keep- media-in-check-29-02-2012,41959.html and the article of Human Rights Watch available at: http://www.hrw.org/news/2013/07/16/morocco-free-student-imprisoned-insulting-king.

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OMDH and CNDH). In the end, advocacy network attained neither liberation, nor mitigation of sanctioned individuals’ sentences. On the other hand, the authorities were aware of international attention to these cases. That may prevent them from taking any further excessive steps or sanctioning other individuals in similar cases to come.

 Since El Hasnaoui’s case is very fresh and advocacy network emerged only at the beginning of 2014, I do not aspire to discuss this unsettled case.

 Mohamed El Baladi received support from an advocacy network that was mobilized by the Christian organizations. Since nature of Baladi’s case implied (from very beginning) that he would not be hardly sanctioned (consult Table D), I believe that creation of domestic network did not have a decisive role in this case.

4.8 LIMITS OF MINE, AND SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER RESEARCH

After writing these last lines of my thesis I need to reflect ups and downs of my research. From the time I commenced my field research in Morocco I knew that I would face a couple of obstacles.

First, I originally thought that as a foreign observer of advocacy networks, I would investigate entire Moroccan understanding of freedom of expression. I was naïve. It soon turned out that freedom of expression was not a very hot topic in Morocco. Human rights advocates did not want to talk about it openly. During my interviews they prioritized other topics that they worked on and where they achieved some further successes (especially OMDH and CNDH). I now allege that Amnesty International did not pursue freedom of expression that heartedly as it presented in the interview; although I might have changed my mind if I had spoken with the General Secretariat in London. Moroccan NGOs stressed that they currently focus their activities more on women´s rights139 or abolition of the death penalty.140 They said that these are the most striking contemporary problems plaguing the country. They also believed that in contrast to freedom of expression these topics might be defined in a clear way. They could therefore reach some visible successes promoting these topics.141

139 Amnesty International launched a new campaign My body my rights in March 2014. Supra note 86. 140 For example OMDH in cooperation with Amnesty International Morocco just started a new campaign in May 2014. 141 The issue of freedom of expression is still quite complicated to grasp. It is a dynamic freedom that evolve a lot (especially in these days with the internet boom). Its concept develops. OMDH (2014) talked about the actual clash between freedom of press and bloggers on the internet (currently Morocco blocks some blogs and web pages). The common aspect of freedom of expression is also prevention of potential misinformation and prohibited propaganda. It is really difficult to find a way to control that. It can be also the argument for the further limitation.

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My second major research dilemma was whether I should inquire advocacy irrespectively on the time setting or in a specific time-frame. After three months of observation and gathering of research relevant data I chose to conduct my research in very recent cases where the State stepped upon individual rights; on the period after the Arab Spring. The Arab Spring was a cornerstone of the political development of the whole region, including human rights advocacy. It also brought a new Constitution. If I had I focused on the period before the Arab Spring, my results would not have been that actual. The other trouble was that I focused on cases that were both triggered in different time and where advocates due to distinct scenario had not applied whole spectre of strategies. These cases were not solved yet, but they still evolved.

Third, time scape of my fieldwork was strictly limited by duration of my study stay in Morocco (from October 2013 to March 2014). While analysing gathered data back in the Czech Republic, even if I believe that the data I have collected are (for the purpose of my thesis) sufficient, I found out that repeated interviews with the advocacy actors would enrich the results of my research. If I had that chance, I would welcome to meet my interviewees again to ask detailed questions related to some controversial topics I cannot answer up to now. Since I was already physically away from my research area, and due to difficulties to set reliable online communication with Moroccans, I could not elaborate my answers thoroughly.142

Fourth, as I already stated a couple of times I did not aspire to draw any general conclusions from my results. I only studied a part of a huge and complex issue of human rights advocacy. Although I have made a few noticeable generalisations, these are applicable only to the cases I have studied. I am aware that there are other relevant conditions and variables that influence NGO’s activities, actual strategies and networking patterns, but limited by the range of the thesis and also my lack of experience in providing qualitative inquiry, I perceived this thesis research as a first step, the preparation for the other research that I might start preparing in years to come.

Besides the aforementioned I thought of some recommendations for further research as well. My sample NGOs and studied test cases served well to analyse advocacy patterns regarding Moroccan freedom of expression. The developments of these cases might be a subject for a future research.143 It might also be practical to expand both number of studied advocates and

142 I have already encountered some problems while organizing face-to-face interviews with my respondents while I was in Morocco; despite this fact I tried to contact them again, but without success. 143 E.g. in Ali Anouzla’s case the network will surely activate again before his next judicial hearing. The hearing was supposed to be in May 20, 2014. One day before authorities postponed hearing again. See more: http://www.amnesty.org/en/news/morocco-stop-using-terrorism-pretext-imprison-journalists-2014-05-20; in case of Mustapha El Hasnaoui the network was just created at the beginning of 2014, the analysis of future development may be interesting. After his last release, El-Haqed promised to calm himself. Obviously authorities are still able to

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number of cases they advocate. Such enhanced research could include the study of Government’s perspectives, its reactions to particular NGO’s strategies and analysis of the measures the Government made to prevent further cases from arising, too.

If anybody pursued more complex research, he might come with somewhat general conclusions. Such conclusions might provide a recipe for human rights advocates, the recipe on how to act in particular cases of human rights abuses and how to effectively handle such situations.

With respect to the current troubles that desolated the relations between Ukraine and Russia, further research might expand to study limits imposed on freedom of expression in this Eastern part of Europe as well. It might definitely be catchy to study a role of human rights advocates in Russia.

find a reason to get in conflict with him. He was arrested again on May 19, 2013. He spent two days in prison, waiting for a judicial hearing planned for May 22 (I do not cover the future development of the case in my thesis due to the time deadline on May 25). In immediate reaction to rapper’s imprisonment Moroccan artists mobilized, hashtag #Freel7a9ed and Facebook page to support him was created. Find more information available online at: http://www.telquel-online.com/content/l7a9ed-passe-la-nuit-à-oukacha.

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5 CONCLUSION

To sum up, data I gathered showed that there were a few dozen cases where individual’s freedom of expression was encroached upon by the Moroccan Government. These cases attracted attention of at least some of Moroccan human rights advocates although they perceived them differently. Almost all of the sampled NGOs responded to the State’s oppressions, but they employed various strategies to attain their goals. With respect to my findings I divided these advocates into two groups. On one hand, those that maintained positive relations with the authorities. These were limited in strategies they could employ. On the other hand, those that operated as independent advocates. Those used all available peaceful means to accomplish the objectives they pursued. As my results suggested that the independent advocates likely cooperated, they called for help abroad and created human rights advocacy networks frequently. The authorities-friendly advocates rather discussed the actual cases of inadmissible limits imposed on individual’s freedom of expression directly with the authorities. Speaking of particular cases, the activation of a network was closely linked to the strategies used by a concrete NGO. This relation depended on several determinants though. I differentiated between internal and external conditions that led to mobilization of a network. First, on the subject of internal factors, independent advocates with universal agenda and international scope of activities created networks regularly whereas those affiliated with the authorities and with domestic sphere of influence did not. Second, considering external factors, a content of a proclaimed message did not prove to have such decisive impact, while severity of a concrete punitive measure clearly influenced the mobilization of a network. The higher number of human rights advocates participated on a case, the higher was the probability of their networking. NGOs with the same mandate, maintaining daily network were also likely to form ad hoc advocacy networks. These advocates, either domestic or international obviously had a say in promotion and protection of the freedom of expression in studied cases. I have found that continuous pressure from above developed by international actors; and from below implemented by domestic advocates could have impacted the networking pattern of Moroccan human rights advocates. They apparently aspired to push their objectives through mobilization of society (from below), while they combined it with networking that should have triggered the pressure of the international organizations or other sovereign states (from above). Accidentally, I found that the media played a crucial role in human rights advocacy as well. I called them a leading constituent of advocacy activation. Side by side with NGOs, they spread

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information and helped to win international attention in particular cases. The selection of the cases on which the international community participated also depended on the media coverage of a concrete case. With regard to the increasing speed of information flowing around the world, human rights advocacy had surely earned a new tool to struggle the abusing States. Insufficient guarantees of freedom of expression do not occur only in Morocco, but also in its neighbouring states and wider region. I already suggested that research similar to mine could be conducted for example in contemporary Russia, where the punitive measures against the individual’s freedom of expression take place daily. Not only Russia but also other countries should be subjected to a more detailed analysis.

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7 LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

ANHRI Arab Network for Human Rights Information AMDH Association Marocaine des Droits Humaines CNDH Conseil national des Droits de l´Homme EMHRN Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Network EU European Union FIDH International Federation of Human Rights HR Human Rights HRW Human Rights Watch ICCPR International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights ICESCR International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights LMDDH La League Marocaine pour la Defense des Droits de l’Homme MALI Mouvement alternative pour les libertés individuelles NGO Non-Governmental organisation OMDH Organisation Marocaine des Droits Humaines UDHR Universal Declaration of Human Rights UN United Nations

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8 LIST OF THE TABLES

Table A.: Data Collection Matrix……………………………………….…..……8 Table B.: NGO’s Practices…………………………………………….………..19 Table C.: The List of NGO’s Strategies……………………….……….………..20 Table D.: Actual Cases of Sanctions Against The Individuals…………..……32-33 Table E.: The List of Moroccan NGOs…………………..…………….……….36 Table F.: Summary of NGO’s Strategies Employed in Studied Cases…….……..41 Table G.: Summary of the Cases Studied….…………………………….…..…..47 Table H.: Summary: Participation of the Targeted NGOs in the Cases Studied…51 Table I.: Summary: Targeted NGOs and Strategies They Applied…....……....….52

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