Morocco expelled two French reporters from the weekly magazine “Marianne” on Wednesday for reporting news in the kingdom without authorization from the appropriate Moroccan authorities. Officials escorted Quentin Müller (assistant editor-in-chief) and Thérèse Di Campo (a freelance photographer working for the magazine) to Casablanca airport in the early morning and put them on a plane back to France.
Müller had landed in Marrakech last Friday claiming to be a landscaper, before heading to Casablanca where he tweeted that he is “investigating the king, his court and his security services.”
Having spent just three days in Morocco, Müller later indicated that he had done a “lengthy investigation,” on Morocco’s regime and institutions, can it be possible to be done in three days?
“Reporters Sans Frontières” (RSF) tweeted on Wednesday that Morocco’s move to expel the unauthorized reporters who had come into the country on false pretenses a “brutal & inadmissible attack on press freedom.”
In France, foreign journalists must comply with the country’s laws and obtain the necessary authorizations before they can investigate or take pictures. Morocco, quite simply, imposes the same rules that these journalists did not respect.
312 journalists from international media were authorized to report on Morocco’s earthquake, but the two expelled reporters are not among them, government spokesperson Mustapha Baitas had affirmed on Thursday.
French Media has criticized Morocco, its King, and its institutions in its coverage of the earthquake aftermath, and at least one French media company is accused of publishing fake news and unauthorized pictures on its site for purposes of sensationalism.
Morocco’s Press Council (CNP) has sent a complaint to the French Council on Journalistic Ethics and Mediation (CDJM) for violations by both Charlie Hebdo (a caricature) and La Libération (misleading information).