Moroccan journalist engaged in the defense of human rights Omar Radi, in preventive detention for nine months, suspended his hunger strike on Friday which began 21 days ago for health reasons, his family announced.
This 34-year-old journalist is being prosecuted for having received “foreign funding”, “attack on the internal security of the State” and “rape” for two different cases. His trial has been postponed twice, the next hearing scheduled for May 18.
Omar Radi “has decided to temporarily suspend his hunger strike” because of “the significant deterioration in his health over the past two days,” his father Driss Radi wrote on his Facebook page on Friday.
The activist had started his movement in the hope of obtaining his provisional release, after several refusals by Moroccan justice.
Despite the suspension of his hunger strike, Omar Radi “continues to defend his constitutional right to a fair trial and to prosecution in a state of liberty,” said his father.
Another journalist, Soulaimane Raissouni, in detention for eleven months and on hunger strike for 23 days, with the same demands as Mr. Radi, for his part continues his movement.
This editor-in-chief of the newspaper Akhbar Al-Yaoum – which ceased to appear in mid-March for financial reasons – is being prosecuted for “indecent assault with violence” and “kidnapping”, after a complaint filed by an activist of the LGBT cause.
The next hearing of his trial, already postponed three times, is also set for May 18.
Moroccan justice has repeatedly refused the provisional release of the two journalists, prosecuted in separate cases but both linked, according to their supporters, to their critical publications.
The two journalists have always denied the alleged facts and their supporters claim that it is a “political trial”.
The two plaintiffs behind the sexual assault charges against them deny any “instrumentalization”. The Moroccan authorities, for their part, always emphasize the independence of the judiciary and the conformity of procedures.
