Morocco will not close Amnesty’s office

Morocco is an open country to international rights NGOs and will not close Amnesty’s office despite the failure of the latter to present evidence for its latest accusations against authorities, minister in charge of human rights Mustapha Ramid said.

Speaking to MPs, Ramid reiterated Morocco’s open-arm policy towards international organizations including Amnesty, while at the same time deploring that the latter did not respond to the government’s request to present proof to corroborate its claims on a journalist being snooped on using an Israeli spyware.

Morocco has on multiple occasions rejected these unfounded claims saying that journalist Omar Radi failed to update his IOS navigator and acknowledged accessing insecure websites.

Morocco has repeatedly stated that Amnesty International has no choice but to provide evidence to the Moroccan government or drop its unfounded accusations against the Kingdom,
The head of the Government Saad Dine El Otmani has recently regretted that Amnesty failed to present proof of its accusations and an Israeli court dismissed a case brought by Amnesty against Israeli NSO company for absence of evidence.

In an interview with La Tribune de Geneve, foreign minister Nasser Bourita reaffirmed Morocco’s position saying that Amnesty failed to help Moroccan authorities fact check by carrying out their own investigation.

“If someone was spying on our citizens (…) we should identify him. Today, It became clear that Amnesty is not capable of presenting evidence. We are not the only ones who said this,” said Bourita.