Sometimes a Link Is Just a Link: Free Ali Anouzla! | Electronic Frontier Foundation

19.10.13

Sometimes a Link Is Just a Link: Free Ali Anouzla! | Electronic Frontier Foundation: A link is just a link...except when it isn’t. In one ongoing case in Morocco, the act of linking to a news article that linked to a YouTube video that was posted by a terrorist group has landed a prominent editor in jail, charged with “material assistance” to a terrorist group, “defending terrorism,” and “inciting the execution of terrorist acts.”

If it sounds Kafkaesque, that’s because it is. Arrested on September 17, Ali Anouzla, the Moroccan editor of the online-only publication Lakome, is currently being held in pre-trial detention.

“Rarely has a jailed Arab journalist prompted so many calls for his release,” wrote a columnist for Lebanon’s Daily Star. Indeed, Anouzla’s case has prompted widespread consternation even from publications like the Washington Post, where praise for the Moroccan king is common. A group of Egyptian journalists have demanded Anouzla’s freedom, while free speech and human rights organizations all over the world have also spoken up in solidarity with the journalist; a letter signed by 60 such groups (including EFF), states: