Rabat – Moroccan police in Meknes arrested a 22-year-old man on Thursday for spreading rumors of a coronavirus (2019-nCOV) outbreak in Morocco.
Security services in the city arrested the man for filming a video in which he claims authorities recorded coronavirus-related deaths in Meknes, according to a statement from the General Directorate of National Security (DGSN).
The man appears in the video wearing a medical mask and shared the rumors on social media, the statement added.
Police launched an investigation to determine the suspect’s links to a separate video in which a man impersonates a nurse in Meknes and claims authorities detected coronavirus cases in the city.
DGSN, subsequently, condemned the rumors and the fake news reports that are creating panic among Moroccan citizens.
This is not the first arrest that Moroccan police have made in response to rumors of a coronavirus outbreak in the North African country.
Police arrested a woman for sharing a video on Facebook warning Moroccans that authorities had detected a case of the coronavirus in Fez at a Chinese restaurant called “the Great Wall.”
The restaurant condemned the fake news in a statement to MWN, emphasizing that they will file a lawsuit against the woman.
So far, no cases of the novel coronavirus have been detected in Morocco.
Morocco’s government put in place a thorough monitoring mechanism to detect possible cases. The monitoring mechanisms are in all if the country’s international airports and ports.
Morocco also set up a medical monitoring system in the Guerguerat border in Dakhla, the health directorate of the southern Moroccan city announced today.
The outbreak of the novel coronavirus in China has claimed the lives of more than 500 people in China so far, with more than 24,000 confirmed cases since December 2019.
