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The trial
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| Nadia Yassine's Trial (to be continued) | |
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| March 14, 2006. |
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| On March 14, 2006 the Criminal Chamber in Rabat deferred once again the case of Ms Nadia Yassine to a later date yet to be fixed by the Court. |
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| Nadia Yassine came to Court at 2:00pm in the company of many of her brothers and sisters in the movement Al Adl Wal Ihsan (Justice and Spirituality), and of course the members of the movement’s Guidance Council and members of the Secretariat-General of the Political Circle. Many journalists, observers and people interested in the case were also present while the absence of the journalist Abdelaziz Kukass and his attorneys was noted. |
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| A huge crowd of supporters gathered at the gates of the court when Nadia Yassine and her company from family and officials of the movement entered. They were all wearing the red-crossed gag like the one Nadia wore on the occasion of her first trial. Some were also wearing printed cards claiming “don’t touch the liberty of press and opinion”. An hour and half after the trial had started, they left the premises at the request of the movement’s spokesman who praised their sense of discipline and thanked them for their presence and support of the movement’s position against abuse of free speech and free press. |
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| Also were there to support Ms Nadia more than forty lawyers, male and female. They represented the bar associations of cities like Rabat, Casablanca and Settat. They began the plea by demanding to cancel the last hearing’s record on account of some outrageous violations of law committed by the judge himself. Among such violations was the adjourning of the hearing based allegedly on the defense request, which was absolutely false. Still, the judge never proceeded to check the identities of the defendants, which is according to the attorneys an infringement of the law. They also criticized vehemently the Court for not summoning Ms Nadia to her very trial and deliberately mixing up addresses so that the convocation may reach an address different from the one Ms Nadia Yassine clearly stated during her interrogation. |
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| After listening to the attorneys, the judge decided to cancel the decision he had taken in the last hearing concerning the postponement at the demand of the defendant’s representatives, and decided to hold another hearing at a future date to be fixed later. |
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| A press conference was held at 06:30pm (GMT) on the same day at the movement’s head offices in Sale. National and international press was present. But the conference was interrupted because it coincided with the sit-in organized by the national work group in condemnation of the Israeli’s raid on the Areeha Jail. All the participants were asked to join it. In fact, most of them joined the place intended for the sit-in to denounce the Zionist arrogance. At the forefront were Ms Nadia Yassine, Messrs Fathalla Arsalan, Abdelwahed Elmoutawakil, Abdelkarim Alami, Muhammed Slimani, Abdessamad Fathi, Umar Iharshan and many other officials of the movement. |
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