European Parliament: Morocco Responds to Hostile, Biased Campaigns

Rabat – The amendments suggested to the EU Parliament’s 2022 “report on the implementation of the common foreign security policy” are part of a smearing campaign targeting Morocco, a source from Morocco’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said today.

The authorized source’s remarks followed the adoption by the European Parliament of two amendments to its latest “Report on the implementation of the common foreign and security policy.”

“These amendments, carried and promoted by circles with proven hostility, are part of the campaign of attacks and harassment carried out against the Kingdom, by those who are disturbed by Morocco’s development,” the authorized source said, stressing that Morocco has been warning against similar campaigns targeting it “directly and individually.”

The European Parliament did not display the result of the vote yet at the time of writing.

The source stressed that Morocco has been singled out by hostile campaigns, which reflect “biased stances” against the North African kingdom.

“It is the manifestation of real abuses and abuses of democratic institutions and processes. It is amazing to see that even when some complain of foreign interference, they are the first to practice it by interfering in the internal affairs and judicial processes of a sovereign State,” the source said.

Suggesting that Morocco expects such hostile attacks to continue, the source added that the unrelenting attacks will not distract Rabat from pursuing its strategic goals.

Morocco remains confident in its “national processes and serene in its internal and foreign policy choices. The Kingdom cannot allow itself to be distracted by relentlessness with well-understood ulterior motives,” the source insisted.

The Moroccan official’s response comes amid hostile texts proposed by MEPs against Morocco.

Earlier this month, Morocco’s Foreign Minister Nasser Bourita rebuked the investigation linking Morocco to an alleged corruption scandal engulfing the EU parliament.

Bourita described the investigation as “judicial and media harassment,” stressing: Morocco’s position has always been that the partnership must be protected by both sides.”

The authorized source from the foreign ministry echoed Bourita’s remarks, emphasizing that the positions on “unproven allegations” were merely conveyed by certain media without “any legal basis even though a judicial investigation is underway and has not yet rendered its conclusions.”

MEPs at the European Parliament are also set to discuss the situation of journalists in Morocco, “notably the case of Omar Radi.”

Some MEPs have recommended a draft resolution accusing Morocco of “harassing” and handing journalists “long sentences” for their “work.”

The resolution referenced Omar Radi, a journalist in Morocco arrested in 2020 after a female colleague, Hafsa Boutahar, filed a complaint accusing him of rape.

Radi denied Boutahar’s accusation, but the victim insisted that the journalist had raped her. She also decried the defamation campaign launched against her by the journalist’s supporters.

The authorized source from the foreign ministry commented on the EU Parliament resolution. MEPs have chosen to “ignore the rights of victims, questioning the independent judicial system, to take the side of individuals who have already been tried for facts of common law, and in no case, for opinions or expressions,” the source said.

Lahcen Haddad, Chairman of the Morocco-EU Joint Parliamentary Committee, has also condemned the hostile draft resolution.

“No person can be subject, as underlined by the Preamble of the Constitution of the Kingdom of Morocco and article 26 of the International Covenant on Civil Rights, to discrimination or persecution because of their sex, identity, social origin, opinion for the sole purpose of intimidation or to force them to silence,” Haddad said.
Haddad also called on MEPs to investigate “real and proven cases” of human rights violations in other countries in Europe, instead of obsessively focusing on Morocco.