RABAT, Morocco (AP) - A court fined the Al-Jazeera bureau chief in Morocco and a human rights campaigner the equivalent of US$6,945 (euro4,385) each on Friday on charges of conspiracy and spreading false information.
Hassan Rachidi and Ibrahim Sbai Ellail, an activist from the Moroccan Center for Human Rights, were charged following June 7 clashes between security forces and demonstrators in the southwestern port city of Sidi Ifni who protested poverty and unemployment.
Moroccan authorities rejected as "false" and "absurd" Al-Jazeera reports of deaths in Sidi Ifni at the time. Authorities said 48 people were injured, including 28 police officers, but that there were no deaths. Although Al-Jazeera reported the government's denial, the chief prosecutor's office in Rabat, the capital, ordered a probe to determine the origin of the report of deaths.
Rachidi was interrogated by the judiciary police for four hours and he was charged on June 14 with publishing false information and conspiracy. The Moroccan Information Ministry withdrew his media accreditation.
In May, Morocco suspended Al-Jazeera's daily television bulletin covering the Maghreb countries, Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya and Mauritania, from its studios in the Moroccan capital.
The decision, according to Khalid Naciri, the Moroccan information minister and spokesman for the government, was due to "technical and legal issues."
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