Saida
El Alami

Background and Work

Saida El Alami is a blogger and digital rights defender from Morocco who has used social media platforms and participated in peaceful street demonstrations to document and denounce corruption, abuses of power, and the narrowing of civic space in her country. Her work focuses on the systematic use of criminal law to suppress critical speech, particularly provisions targeting insult to state bodies and the dissemination of what authorities classify as false information.

On 23 March 2022, she was arrested in Casablanca over Facebook posts criticising the security services and the judiciary. On 29 April 2022 a Casablanca court sentenced her to two years in prison and a fine, and in September 2022 the Court of Appeal raised the sentence to three years. In 2023, while she was in prison, a second case added more prison time. The charges in those earlier cases were similar to those she was later convicted of: insult and false allegations related to her online commentary. She was released on 29 July 2024 under a royal pardon, before the end of her sentence. Upon her release, she resumed her activism, continuing to post commentary about due process violations and the use of the penal code to stifle dissent.

The Arrest

On 1 July 2025, officers from the National Judicial Police Brigade arrested Saida El Alami on a street in Casablanca without prior notice or warrant. The Moroccan Association for Human Rights reported that no criminal act had been observed or alleged at the time of her arrest. She was taken to a police station and held in preliminary investigative custody for two days.

On the morning of 3 July 2025, she was brought before the King's Prosecutor at the Ain Sebaa Court of First Instance. The charges were insulting a legally organized body, disseminating false allegations, and insulting the judiciary. The prosecutor ordered her placed in pre-trial detention. Her defence lawyers report that she was denied access to legal counsel during that appearance. A trial date was initially set for 8 July.

Legal Proceedings

Saida El Alami refused to attend the hearing scheduled for 8 July 2025. Her legal team stated that the refusal was a protest against the denial of her right to counsel when she appeared before the prosecutor five days earlier. The trial was postponed to 15 July.

On 15 July, she appeared before the Casablanca Court of First Instance and informed the court that she had begun a hunger and water strike the previous day. Her lawyers explained that the strike was intended to protest the circumstances of her arrest and what they described as violations of Moroccan law and international human rights standards, particularly guarantees of freedom of opinion and expression. At the end of the hearing, under urging from both the court and her defence team, she agreed to resume drinking water. The court granted a further postponement to allow her lawyers additional time to prepare her defence, scheduling the next hearing for 23 July 2025.

On 16 September 2025, the Criminal Court of Ain Sebaa in Casablanca handed down its judgment. Saida El Alami was convicted on all three charges and sentenced to three years in prison and a fine of 20,000 dirhams, about 1,870 euros.

Criticism and Context

The Moroccan Committee for the Support of Political Prisoners condemned the verdict, describing it as part of a broader pattern of criminalizing peaceful expression. The organization noted that the continued deployment of penal code provisions to silence critics conflicts with Article 25 of the Moroccan Constitution, which guarantees freedom of opinion and expression, and with Article 19 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, to which Morocco is a party.

The case reflects a sustained trend in Morocco of using vaguely worded criminal statutes, particularly those related to insult of state institutions and false allegations, to prosecute individuals who criticize public authorities or document human rights violations. Saida El Alami's prosecution follows her sentencing in 2022 and her imprisonment until a royal pardon in July 2024. Her re-arrest less than a year after that pardon underscores the precarious position of digital rights defenders and online commentators in Morocco, where prior punishment and even official clemency provide no protection from renewed prosecution for similar speech.