Morocco: Earthquake response critic has sentence increased
A court in Morocco has increased the prison sentence of activist Said Ait Mahdi for his critique of the country’s response to the 2023 earthquake, according to The New Arab on March 5th.
Said was initially sentenced to three months in prison back in January of this year for “defamation, insult and the publication of false allegations aimed at infringing on privacy”.
However, a court of appeal in Morocco has now increased the sentence to a year for his role in criticising the response to the earthquake.
Mahdi was sentenced with three other defendants, all of whom were sentenced based on ‘complaints from local officials following social media posts they considered offensive.’
The posts were aimed at critiquing the response of local and state authorities to the 2023 earthquake which struck the El Haouz province, just south of Marrakech.
Civilian protests sprung up in the wake of the earthquake, as residents of the Atlas region expressed anger and frustration after waiting weeks for emergency assistance, as reported by Maghrebi.
The earthquake caused severe damage across many regions of the country, even destroying the village of Tafeghaghte, some 30 miles away from the epicentre.
The 6.8 magnitude quake struck on September 8th 2023 and killed nearly 3,000 people, leaving another 5,600 injured estimates report.
In the Atlas region, which saw civilian protests and workers strikes, people were left to live in tents after nearly 60,000 homes were destroyed.
Mahdi led campaign groups that were focused on highlighting the shortcomings of the Moroccan governments response and fought for the expedition of reconstruction projects in the worst hit areas.
The Moroccan government was quick to relay that they had issued 57,000 reconstruction plans and permits for more than
35,000 homes to be built by the December of 2023 – just over three months after the earthquake.
An $11 billion reconstruction plan set to take five years was also approved for the six provinces worst hit by the earthquake.
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