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| « Le Journal Hebdomadaire » February 25 to March3, 2006 issue 244 |
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| After her prohibition from leaving the national territory, finally lifted, Nadia Yassine accuses the Moroccan power of violating the law. The mastermind of al adl wal ihssan is sued because of the publication of an interview where she predicted significant change for Morocco. After these events it’s clear that the association and the government have started a new round in their arm-wrestling match. |
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| Le Journal Hebdomadaire (hereinafter LJH): Moroccan authorities have interdicted you from leaving the territory. How do you explain this decision? What are the justifications presented by the border police? |
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| There is no other way to comment on this decision but to say that we live in a State of non-existent rights and arresting arbitrariness! The police’s conduct made me believe we’re in the court of the king Pétaud or in Kafka’s castle, rather than a State of law. Very wary, they made it clear over and over again that they were simple executants. In fact, I chose to confront them since the beginning , I went straight to the police offices and declared that I didn’t have the intention to capitulate and asked if they intended to prevent me from leaving and whose decision was that? They refused to let me know anything about the decision, certainly because they didn’t have a clue. They were waiting for last minute orders, so they advised me to take the normal embarking procedure, which I did because I was very determined. When they announced it, I didn’t consent to leave the police office, not before I contacted my lawyers. They were right there and launched a judicial procedure the details of which are to be found in our websites. I left hours later when they finally gave me the go-ahead. |
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| LJH: is that decision linked in any way to your trial? |
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| Yes, of course. The Makhzen that grudgingly gave me my passport in 2003 had finally found the pretext to keep me from leaving its territory. Except that the investigation carried by my defense attorneys revealed that there was blatant violation of the law, inasmuch as they had proves that the decision was made subsequent to the trial. This makes the intervention of the king’s prosecutor illegal because it is an encroachment on the judge’s prerogatives. |
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| LJH: can we rightfully speak of a conflict between al adl wal ihssan and the Power? |
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| Yes, under the condition that we don’t consider the trial to be the onset of that conflict, but merely one more expression of a conflict that has been latent since the formation of movement. |
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| LJH: how do you look upon your trial? If you were found guilty, how would you react? |
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| I would logically reflect on my trial in terms of a chain of causes and effects, if only I weren’t dealing with a power that flies blind, that haven’t arranged its priorities, that contradicts itself and systematically violates the law. What do you want me to say? I can only express the sentiment of a deep serenity that the mystical dimension of our education dictates; I can also affirm that prison doesn’t scare me at all. Aren’t we all, in the end, living a suspended sentence in this arbitrary state. |
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| LJH: what measures do you have in mind to counter the power’s offensive against your association? And what would be the reaction of al adl wal ihssan? |
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| We said this times and times again. Our movement doesn’t “react”. We have solid principles that we stick to and aren’t ready to negotiate. Most important of which is non-violence. Our strategy against the power is to undermine its foundations by education, but also by means of a guerilla at the level of symbolism. My sit-in inside the police office comes within scope of that logic. I didn’t do it to assert my rights; I did it to unmask the violation of those rights. |
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| LJH: the power makes use of justice to muzzle the independent press, what do you think about that? |
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| A power that fiercely hounds the press is to me a power that is very much ill at ease. What’s striking is this touchiness vis-à-vis the freedom of expression that proves the organic antinomy between the Makhzen and democracy. The terror that the word causes to the Power reveals, despite all the democratic face-lifts, the persistence of the archaism of a system still attached to the infamous hiba, a notion that once made all its force. Well, the power would have to find itself a new way to last. |
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| LJH: public media (2M, RTM and the MAP) are usually used by the government to launch disparaging campaigns against independent press, what do you think of that? |
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| It is of course inadmissible, but this instrumentation of all powers is just the active expression of a …“granted” Constitution. The use of such low means is in fact the sign of a State that has none left… |
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| LJH: how would you depict the political situation of Morocco today? |
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| Gesticulatory… therefore very precarious… |
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| M.R. |
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