A Moroccan activist was sentenced to prison for his protests against the earthquake response

Marrakesh, Morocco – A well-known Moroccan activist who led protests condemning the government's response to the earthquake was sentenced Monday to prison in a case that human rights advocates condemned as arbitrary and politically motivated.

Said Ait Mehdi, 32, head of one of the leading activist groups in the quake-hit area, was sentenced to three months in prison and ordered to pay more than $1,000, his lawyer Ishak Charia told The Associated Press. The activist was facing charges including defamation, assault, and incitement to an unauthorized demonstration.

The 6.8-magnitude earthquake in September 2023 left major devastation in the Al Haouz region, killing nearly 3,000 people, leveling homes, schools and health centers, and leaving mountain roads unnavigable.

Ait Mehdi is the first activist from the region to face such a ruling. Protests broke out sporadically in towns and villages, with demonstrators accusing local and regional officials of mismanaging recovery efforts while people remained in tents or temporary shelters waiting to return to their homes.

Charia said that defendants facing charges similar to those faced by Ait Mehdi usually receive a one-year prison sentence, and noted that the three-month sentence was less than he had feared. Three other activists facing similar charges were acquitted late Monday evening, marking the third time they had appeared in court since their arrest in December.

Civil liberties advocates in Morocco denounced the arrest of Ait Mehdi. In a statement, the Moroccan Association for Human Rights described this as arbitrary and said that it came in retaliation for his activity on behalf of the earthquake-stricken region and its people.

A group of left-wing NGOs and political parties, the Local Coordination for the Defense of Freedoms and the Right to Organize, said last month that the charges amounted to efforts to “conceal grave violations” against victims that resulted from the government's flawed response to the earthquake. .

In a statement following Ait Mehdi's arrest, the coalition organizing his defense called for his immediate release and condemned “the use of repressive methods… to take revenge on activists.”

The earthquake exacerbated regional inequality that has long plagued parts of Morocco dominated by indigenous minorities. In places already lacking infrastructure in the country's fast-growing coastal cities, the cyclone damaged more than 60,000 homes and at least 585 schools, according to government estimates. Morocco pledged to provide more than $11.5 billion to assist in recovery and reconstruction over the next five years, and allocated funds to rebuild families and provide cash assistance to displaced families.

In addition to organizing protests in towns and villages near the epicenter of the earthquake, such as Imizmiz and Talaat Nicoub, activist groups demonstrated in major cities. Last month, the Civic Coalition of the Mountain, a group of NGOs and associations from the earthquake zone, demonstrated in the capital, Rabat, in front of the Moroccan parliament, drawing attention to the “slow pace of reconstruction” 16 months after the earthquake.

The group had previously called Ait Mehdi “the voice of the oppressed and the victims of the earthquake.” Hundreds demonstrated outside the court in Marrakesh where he was tried last month, holding up his picture and demanding his release.

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