Informed 12


International Best Christmas present ever


Mohammed Elfenich tells how he escaped jail, thanks to the NUJ. For the first time in 15 years, I did not spend last Christmas with my wife. Instead, the day was a dizzying whirl of legal diplomacy by the NUJ and the IFJ that eventually saved me from spending 2020 in a Moroccan jail. I grew up in Morocco but have lived in the UK for 16 years. My wife is from Yorkshire and I am a reporter for Alghad TV, based in London, where I cover politics and current affairs for a North African and Middle Eastern audience. My parents live in Guelmim, in southern Morocco and I visit them oſten. During these visits, I started to notice that millions of pounds were reportedly spent on civic renewal, but there was not much to show. One former municipal leader appeared to be living like an oligarch. I made a few anodyne comments about what I saw to friends on Facebook. I was then forwarded a report from a


authorities and Michelle Stanistreet accompanied me to see the Moroccan ambassador. Te judge at the first appeal reduced the sentence to eight months. My busy life as a reporter continued, but prison hung over me. Eventually my final appeal was listed


Moroccan journalist Mohammed Elfenich


Moroccan news website which said I had been convicted of “insulting a politician”, sentenced to a year in prison and fined £25,000. So began my nightmare. Court documents showed I had signed for the summons in Morocco on a day I was in the UK. Te evidence contained dozens of inflammatory Facebook posts falsely atributed to me. Te NUJ wrote to the Moroccan


for 30 December 2019. Now the IFJ’s president Younes M’Jahed became involved, along with the NUJ’s Jim Boumelha. Michelle proposed a form of words for a joint statement, in which the official agreed to withdraw his case, and the Moroccan union worked hard to get agreement. It was a day of frantic emails and phone calls, but we did it and my accuser agreed to drop his case. I still went to court on 30 December,


where amazingly the judge determined that although the complaint had been dropped, he would dismiss it in its entirety. Tat was a Christmas giſt that was worth waiting for! I can lead an ordinary life again aſter two years of worry.


Assange atack


Journalists must put aside their personal view of Julian Assange and fight his cause, Tim Dawson, former NUJ president, told a London rally in support of the Wikileaks founder. Te first steps towards extradition have started at Woolwich Crown Court. Tim Dawson said: “Unless journalists wake up to this threat and focus on the grievous harm that his successful prosecution represents, the ability of any of us to report will be seriously damaged. Debating whether Assange is, or is not, really a journalist is


irrelevant at this moment. So are judgments on his past behaviour or character. Te legal devices being deployed to try and take him to the US are unprecedented and terrifying for anyone whose journalism touches on state security, defence or espionage. If Assange is sent from here to start a prison sentence that could be 175 years, then no journalist is safe.” Assange’s alleged crimes relate to Wikileaks revelations including atacks to civilians in the Iraq war.


Mexico tops killing list Mexico remains the most


dangerous country in the world for journalists, with 10 murdered last year, Te International Federation of Journalists annual report of killings of journalists found. Te report detailed 49 deaths worldwide. In Mexico journalists are oſten threatened by organised crime cartels and the high- level impunity and lack of protection from government does nothing to buck this trend of killings. By region, the report noted Latin America had the highest number of deaths (18), followed by Asia-Pacific (12), Africa (9), the Middle East


and Arab world (8). In Europe, two journalists were killed in 2019: Lyra McKee, shot while covering a riot in Derry, Northern Ireland, and Vadym Komarov, killed following a violent atack by unidentified individuals in the centre of Cherkassy, Ukraine.


Global action Te international section of the Delegate Meeting agenda calls on the NEC to highlight journalists’ problems in the Yemen, Turkey, Afghanistan and Palestine and support the IFJ’s campaigns to release journalists jailed for doing their jobs.


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