Middle East Online
Wafaa Charaf gets one year in jail and must also pay fine of about $6,000 in damages and interest and fine of $120.
RABAT – An activist from Morocco’s February 20 movement has been sentenced by a Tangiers court to a year in jail for a “false torture allegation”, her lawyer said.
Wafaa Charaf must also pay a fine of 50,000 Moroccan dirhams (about $6,000, 4,500 euros) in damages and interest and a fine of 1,000 dirhams ($120, 90 euros).
The young woman alleged she was “kidnapped” in April and “thrown into an unmarked police car” after a demonstration in Tangiers, where she lives.
Charaf claimed to have been “tortured” then “left at the side of a road” on the outskirts of town. But the court said she made a “false torture allegation”.
During her trial, which went on late into the night on Monday, several dozen activists staged a rally of support outside the court, witnesses said.
Charaf’s lawyer Mohamed Sadqo said by telephone that it was an “unjust political verdict” and a “serious breach of the Moroccan constitution and international conventions against torture which Morocco has signed.”
Sadqo said he plans to enter an appeal.
The February 20 movement, formed during the Arab Spring, continues to call for political and social reform in Morocco, but its activities have shrunk, with members claiming repression.
The authorities say the main claims has been met with the adoption in summer 2011 of a new constitution.
