Moroccan historian and human rights defender Maati Monjib is spending his birthday in prison. He’s also on a hunger strike protesting his imprisonment. Thinking a lot today of the countless times we met in rabat to have incredibly enlightening convos on the country’s history.
Summary of his case
Dr. Monjib was arrested on Tuesday, December 29th in a Rabat restaurant, held in pre-trial detention, and subsequently sentenced, without hearing, to a year in prison.
Dr. Monjib was arrested on Tuesday, December 29th in a Rabat restaurant, held in pre-trial detention, and subsequently sentenced, without hearing, to a year in prison.
Monjib is currently being held at the Al Arjat prison in Salé; he has diabetes and a heart condition, so his health is also of concern.
Dr. Monjib has spent time in the United States on various academic missions.
Dr. Monjib has spent time in the United States on various academic missions.
He was a visiting professor at the University of Florida’s Center for African Studies in the spring semester of 2004; he was a Fulbright Scholar-in-Residence at Rainy River Community College in Minnesota in 2005-2006;
and he was a Patkin Fellow at the Brookings Institution from June-October 2009, working on their Middle East Democracy and Development Project.
IN 1992 Dr. Monjib published an academic book on Hassan II, the former king of Morocco (La monarchie marocaine et la lutte pour le pouvoir. Paris: L’Harmattan), for which he was subjected to harassment by the Moroccan state.
At that point, he elected to go into self-imposed exile in Senegal where he taught for several years at the Université Gaston Berger, and served as Chair of the Political Science Department for two years.
Upon the death of Hassan II in 1999 Monjib returned to Morocco and was named Assistant Professor of History at Moulay Ismaïl University in Meknès, and then Professor of History at the Institute of African Studies at the Mohammed V University in Rabat.
During this time he also worked as a journalist and helped found the NGO Freedom Now for the protection of writers and journalists.
Monjib has been consistently harassed and surveilled by the Moroccan government for several years for his work in the area of freedom of expression and human rights.
He was prohibited from teaching and from leaving the country, and NSO Pegasus spyware was installed on his cellphone in 2017 or perhaps earlier. The culmination of this harassment is now his arrest and detention.
More via frontline defenders: frontlinedefenders.org/en/case/preven…
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