Fully Authoritarian
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Population
HRF classifies Morocco as ruled by a fully authoritarian regime.
King Mohammed VI has ruled Morocco since July 1999. He ascended the throne following the death of his father, King Hassan II. The Moroccan monarchy, specifically the Alaouite dynasty, has been in power since the early 17th century. Despite promising to implement reforms, King Mohammed VI’s reign has been marked by authoritarianism. The monarchy maintains significant power, limits political pluralism, suppresses dissent, and violates human rights, including restricting freedom of expression and assembly. In 2011, widespread protests in Morocco, prompted in part by the February 20 Movement and what is commonly referred to as the Arab Spring, demanded an end to corruption, separation of powers, and the establishment of democracy. In response to public pressure, King Mohammed VI announced limited reforms, including constitutional changes. However, the protest movement rejected these reforms and the approval process, as the new constitution allowed the king to maintain significant power over the legislative, executive, and judicial branches.
Elections are a sham, to the point where the real, mainstream political opposition does not have a realistic chance to meaningfully compete and possibly win. Political parties exist, but many are seen as co-opted or controlled by the regime, or the Makhzen, a network of elites with direct ties to the regime who control state institutions. The regime insulates itself from public anger by regularly causing political fragmentation among the opposition, and thus diminishes the potential for a unified front against the ruling establishment, as co-opted figures adopt a more conciliatory stance toward the regime’s policies.
Independent media, political leaders, civil society leaders, organizations, and regular people face overt and systematic retaliation if they openly criticize or challenge the regime. Activists, journalists, and ordinary citizens who criticize the regime often face harassment, intimidation, and legal repercussions. The authorities closely monitor public discourse and falsely charge anyone perceived as a threat to the regime with offenses such as “undermining state security,” “insulting the monarchy,” or “spreading false information.” The pervasive risk of arrest and prosecution instills a climate of fear among the public, discouraging public protests and open criticism of the regime.
Institutions largely fail to serve as independent checks on the regime. The king heads the judicial system, exerts significant influence over judicial proceedings, which have been systematically utilized as legal mechanisms to manipulate the judicial process against dissenters. The king, also retains significant control over key areas, including the appointment of the prime minister and his cabinet, with some key ministries, like the Ministry of Interior, being headed by officials aligned with the palace, which diminishes the parliament’s ability to hold such officials accountable, since political parties and legislators are expected to operate within a framework that favors regime interests.
Elections are a sham, to the point where the real, mainstream political opposition does not have a realistic chance to meaningfully compete and possibly win. Every five years, Morocco holds parliamentary elections. However, the Moroccan regime and the Makhzen have limited the effectiveness of their political opponents’ capacity to engage in meaningful political discourse. Historically, the Makhzen has relied on a system of propping up political parties, co-opting political elites, and merging existing parties into larger, regime-controlled parties. In this way, the Makhzen maintains the illusion of competitive political engagement, where parties loyal to the monarchy enjoy substantial backing and support from the palace, all the while preventing any single party from posing a threat to the monarchy’s power. For example, the Alliance of Liberties, a moderate and reformist party formed in 2002, was absorbed into the Authenticity and Modernity Party (Parti Authenticité et Modernité – PAM), a regime-aligned party, in 2008.
Because of the regime’s co-optation and dominance over Moroccan politics, the genuine, mainstream political opposition has no realistic opportunity to form political groups, compete fairly, or achieve majority coalitions to govern effectively. The Makhzen responded to the February 20 Movement by resorting to dissent-stifling tactics like reshuffling cabinets, holding electorally engineered legislative elections, and propping up a controlled opposition group, the Justice and Development Party (PJD), to absorb protest demands and serve as a counterweight to popular dissent. In October 2016, the Makhzen deliberately hampered the PJD’s capacity to form a majority coalition by staging a political impasse that King Mohammed VI later used as an excuse to remove the PJD’s then-leader, Abdelilah Benkirane, from his position as prime minister and appoint Saadeddine Othmani, then the PJD’s deputy leader and a former foreign minister, as his replacement. Othmani appeared to quickly form a coalition that included a larger number of palace allies, such as the National Rally of Independents (RNI), which eventually took control of key ministries, while the PJD’s role was diminished. Similarly, regime agents infiltrated the Istiqlal, one of Morocco’s oldest and most historically significant political parties. In September 2017, Hamid Chabat, Istiqlal’s then-leader, accused “some political parties and state agencies” of aggressively attempting to influence the party’s internal dynamics and leadership elections. Chabat cautioned that if Istiqlal party members chose a candidate “co-opted by the state” as party secretary-general, then the Istiqlal party may effectively become a regime-run organization.
The regime unfairly bars real, mainstream opposition parties and candidates from competing in elections, including indirectly through judicial prosecution that leads to disqualification. Compared to pro-regime parties, candidates from smaller opposition parties have faced several challenges, including regime interference, limitations on their ability to campaign, or difficulty accessing media outlets. For example, since its founding in 1995, the Democratic Way (DW), a Marxist-Leninist political party, has strongly opposed the Mahkzen. A founding member of the Democratic Way, Abdallah El Harif spent a total of 14 years in prison for organizing political activities, including election boycotts and democratic reform protests. As a result, the DW is frequently referred to by the regime as a “virulent” organization, and it is specifically criticized for standing up for the Sahrawi people’s right to self-determination in Western Sahara—a territory which the Moroccan regime unilaterally annexed in 1976 and has since remained under its control. Due to these activities, the DW has been increasingly denied access to public premises and public media and has been left unable to hold regular meetings. In addition to El Harif, several notable DW figures were arrested after calling for democratic reforms and election boycotts ahead of the 2021 parliamentary elections, including DW party leader Mustafa Brahma, and members Zahra Aslaf, Yassine Zouhir, Chafik Bahmad, and Moulazim Lakbir.
The regime engages in significant electoral law manipulation, voting irregularities, and electoral fraud. The regime has used gerrymandering to ensure that regime-aligned parties dominate the political landscape at the expense of opposition groups. Ahead of the 2021 election, the regime, through the Ministry of Interior, amended the electoral quotient rules, causing widespread controversy, since the amendment favored regime-aligned groups. Previously, the number of parliamentary seats was distributed based on the votes obtained by each party divided by the total number of valid ballots—the denominator. Hence, the PJD obtained 125 seats in 2016 by mobilizing almost 1.6 million voters out of a total of 5.8 million Moroccans who voted that year. However, the changed electoral rules of 2021 stipulated that the number of seats allocated must be based on the total number of eligible voters, not valid ballots. Thus, the denominator became much larger, which diminished the number of seats that parties, particularly the PJD, can obtain in any city, and transferred the reins of governance to the RNI and its ally, PAM, both traditionally associated with the palace.
Independent media, political leaders, civil society leaders, organizations, and regular people face overt and systematic retaliation if they openly criticize or challenge the regime. The Moroccan regime maintains its authority through a pervasive and multi-layered system of repression designed to silence dissent and monopolize the national narrative. This strategy relies on the aggressive manipulation of the media landscape, where regime-controlled outlets serve as instruments for propaganda while independent voices are neutralized through censorship, deportation, and “character assassination.” Beyond mere information control, the regime has increasingly weaponized vague penal codes, utilizing fabricated moral and financial charges to delegitimize political critics and civil society leaders. This institutionalized harassment is further compounded by the violent curtailment of public assembly, as evidenced by the draconian sentencing of grassroots activists and the bureaucratic strangulation of human rights organizations.
The regime heavily manipulates media coverage in its favor, with state-controlled outlets regularly portraying the regime favorably while marginalizing dissenting viewpoints. Between 1999 and 2007, the regime banned or censored at least 23 publications. Printed newspapers are almost all state-subsidized, and most print media abide by unspoken rules, including avoiding criticism of the monarchy, the military, the intelligence services, and the Western Sahara issue. The regime routinely shuts down foreign and independent outlets and retaliates against independent journalists, often through character assassination plots. For instance, in September 2023, Thérèse Di Campo, a freelance photojournalist, and Quentin Müller, the deputy editor of the French magazine Marianne, were both arbitrarily detained and deported from Morocco after they met with “Moroccan personalities under surveillance” and amassing “exclusive information portraying an increasingly harsh regime, frightened by any show of local protest.” In February 2018, Taoufik Bouachrine, the editor-in-chief of Akhbar Al-Yaoum, a prominent newspaper, was arrested in connection with his critical editorials on Moroccan regime officials and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman, and was first sentenced to 12 years in prison, with three years later added, under the false pretense of engaging in human trafficking and rape. He was freed via a mass royal pardon in July 2024, along with several other journalists and activists.
The regime seriously intimidates independent and dissenting media, political leaders, civil society leaders, organizations, and members of the general public, or otherwise seriously and unfairly obstructs their work. False claims of sexual assaults and extramarital encounters, which allegedly violate vaguely worded penal laws, have been abusively and consistently utilized by the regime in recent years as a tool to suppress and jail critical journalists and tarnish their reputations. Dissidents, including journalists, are regularly targeted with smear campaigns promoted through state-controlled media outlets, resulting in harassment even after their release from prison. Mohammed Ziane, the head of the Moroccan Liberal Party and a former human rights minister (1996-1997), has been an outspoken politician and critic of the Moroccan government in recent years. After criticizing the regime in its handling of protests, and following a verbal clash with Abdellatif Hammouchi, a close associate of King Mohammed VI, and then-director of the Moroccan Police and head of the Moroccan internal intelligence agency, the General Directorate for Territorial Surveillance (DGST), Ziane was sentenced to three years in prison on a number of bogus charges issued after regime security personnel allegedly captured video purporting to show Ziane in a compromising situation with a married woman. In July 2024, he was sentenced to another five years’ imprisonment on false charges of corruption and embezzling funds from the Moroccan Liberal Party in 2015. In addition to silencing dissidents, the regime has systematically silenced organizations known for their outspoken criticism of human rights abuses in Morocco, including issues related to freedom of expression, political freedom, social justice, arbitrary detentions, and police violence. Although the Moroccan Association for Human Rights (AMDH) was not outright shut down, it has faced increasing harassment and intimidation from the regime. In 2019, at least 54 out of 100 AMDH bureaus in Morocco were denied their registration documents, which prohibited them from legally operating.
The regime seriously and unfairly represses dissenting protests and seeks to control and limit protests through legal repercussions, surveillance, and direct police violence. The Hirak Rif protests, which broke out in October 2016 and continued into the summer of 2017, were triggered by the death of Mouhcine Fikri, a fish merchant who was reportedly crushed in a garbage truck while trying to retrieve fish that had been confiscated on police orders, according to witness testimonies. The regime responded to the Rif-Hirak protests with heavy police crackdowns, arrests of key leaders, and disproportionately lengthy sentences for activists, which drew international condemnation. Fifty-three Rif-Hirak activists, many of whom had been held in arbitrary detention since 2017, were sentenced to prison terms of up to 20 years in June 2018. Among them, the leader of the movement, Nasser Zefzafi, was given a 20-year sentence for allegedly criticizing the monarchy’s influence over religious institutions during the protests. In May 2017, a year after the crackdown on the Hirak Rif Movement began, the regime prosecuted more than 800 people in connection with the movement, sentencing more than 300 of those to prison time. Approximately one-third of those detained in the Rif region were charged solely for expressing their support for the Hirak, primarily on Facebook. Judicial repression and harassment increased significantly following the 2011 uprisings, and by the end of 2021, there were over 350 political prisoners and hundreds of disappeared people, Moroccans and Western Saharans alike.
The regime seriously and unfairly censored dissenting speech. During Mohammed VI’s first year in power, eight local and international newspapers were censored for publishing stories on corruption within the regime, namely in the armed forces and high administrative circles, and for questioning the regime’s policy in the annexed Western Sahara territory. These included the French-language weekly magazine Le Journal and its Arabic sister publication, Al-Sahifa, and Demain, a weekly satirical journal. The regime banned Demain in May 2003 and sentenced its founder, Ali Lmrabet, to four years in prison for allegedly “insulting the person of the king,” attacking Morocco’s “territorial integrity,” and “attacking the monarchy.” While Lmrabet received a royal pardon nine months into his sentence, the regime’s efforts to silence him continued. In April 2005, he faced further punitive measures, receiving a heavy fine and a decade-long ban on publishing Demain. This action followed an article that challenged the official narrative concerning refugees from Western Sahara, implying they had been forcibly displaced by the occupying Moroccan military. The regime delivered the final blow to his career in Morocco in 2015 when it refused to renew his essential identity and proof of residency documents, thereby legally preventing him from reopening the paper or its website and engaging in journalism.
Institutions largely fail to serve as independent checks on the regime. The king heads the High Judicial Council and therefore controls the nominations, promotions, and disciplinary proceedings of judges. As a result, the Moroccan regime has systematically leveraged the judicial system to manipulate the political landscape in ways that favor parties aligned with the monarchy. While Morocco has a legislative body, its role is often limited to ratifying decisions made by the executive and the monarchy. The monarchy’s dominant role in appointing officials, controlling legislation, and intervening in governance means that the parliament primarily implements the king’s agenda rather than independently shaping policy. The regime purposely sustains this environment of limited accountability to preserve its authority and prevent challenges to its legitimacy.
The regime has systematically undermined institutional independence to the point where cases or issues challenging the governing authority are no longer brought or are frequently dismissed. In response to the regime’s abrupt electoral rules changes ahead of the 2021 elections, the PJD, the disadvantaged party, filed a motion with the regime-controlled Constitutional Court. Instead of blocking these changes, the court declared itself not competent to rule on the electoral mechanism (Constitutional Court Decision 118/21, 7 April 2021), effectively granting the regime-backed RNI and parties aligned with it the ability to engineer electoral outcomes. As a result, the RNI, a party close to the palace, which has been part of all coalition governments since 2008, formed a regime-backed cabinet coalition with the liberal RNI, PAM, and the conservative Istiqlal.
Courts have systematically, frequently, and unfairly failed to check, or enabled, the regime’s attempts to repress criticism or retaliate against those who express open opposition to its most prominent, widely publicized policies. Instead of launching investigations into the claims of protesters, the judicial system was used to suppress the Hirak Rif movement by treating it like a political ideology backed by foreign groups. In June 2018, Zefzafi and dozens of other political activists received prison sentences of up to 20 years in an unfair trial. By rendering lengthy sentences against the movement’s leaders and hundreds of protesters for allegedly “threatening national security,” the judiciary effectively blocked the movement’s political reform aspirations.
The regime uses the judiciary to harass dissidents in a systematic and repeated cycle, often subjecting them to sustained legal harassment over many months or even years. For example, before he was incarcerated, Omar Radi, a human rights activist, was targeted with four different legal procedures, summoned on three different offenses, and harassed with over one hundred hours of interrogation in four weeks. Radi’s case is part of a pattern used by the Moroccan regime to arrest, try, and imprison dissidents on false sexual misconduct and espionage charges. Because the regime frequently brings slanderous charges against its opponents, including bogus rape charges, this has allowed regime courts to cite consideration for defendants’ honor to be a valid enough reason to hold trials behind closed doors, raising fears of gross misconduct and unfair trials.
Judicial, legislative, and executive institutions have systematically, frequently, and unfairly failed to hold regime officials accountable. On numerous occasions, judges have used the penal code to extend impunity to regime actors at the expense of plaintiffs. For instance, journalists have been forced to compensate regime officials who have used defamation and libel laws to shield themselves from investigative reporting. Journalist Hamid Elmahdaouy was targeted by the authorities in June 2015 for his reporting on the death of a man while in police custody in Al-Hoceima. He had written a series of articles detailing the incident, which led to his conviction on dubious charges, including “insulting the police force,” “false reporting,” and “slanderous denunciation.” As a result, Elmahdaouy received a four-month suspended prison sentence and was heavily fined, ordered to pay 100,000 Moroccan dirhams (roughly $10,200) in compensation to the head of the national police (DGSN), whose formal complaint initiated the prosecution. Significantly, throughout the entire legal process, the court failed to investigate or even inquire whether an independent investigation had been launched into the death that originally prompted Elmahdaouy’s critical articles.
The regime has systematically subjected legislative institutions to reforms that abolish or seriously weaken their independence or operational effectiveness. The 2011 constitution entrenched overreaching powers for the monarch, consolidating authority in favor of the king, without checks from the executive, legislative, or judicial branches. Among other powers, the king appoints the prime minister—without requiring parliamentary approval—and selects cabinet members based on the prime minister’s recommendations. Article 52 of the new constitution states that the king’s speeches, decrees, and communications cannot be disputed, effectively allowing the king’s decrees to become law without legislative approval. Article 96 further grants the king the power to dissolve one or both chambers of parliament at will. Additionally, according to Article 55, the king has the authority to sign and ratify treaties, with parliamentary approval processes serving only as a legitimation tool. Even Article 107, which details the separate powers of the judiciary, is ambiguous, since the monarch presides over and monitors Morocco’s High Judicial Council.
Furthermore, the new language in the 2011 constitution states that the king is responsible for interpreting the multiple ambiguities, rather than an independent judiciary or legislative body. For example, Article 59 refers vaguely to incidents that impede, rather than disrupt, the functioning of institutions. This ambiguity is further compounded by the fact that the king is the sole arbiter of what constitutes an extraordinary circumstance warranting exceptional measures. The 2011 constitution nominally granted the prime minister authority by requiring them to be chosen from the largest party in parliament, but in practice, the regime has systematically weakened the prime minister’s executive authority. Despite calls for reform, the 2011 constitution preserved an opaque dual cabinet system, with one being led by the prime minister and responsible for day-to-day governance, and a second, presided over by the king, who oversees the Council of Ministers. Numerous control mechanisms and veto rights ensure that real decision-making remains concentrated in the monarchy, effectively sidelining the prime minister’s executive authority and limiting their operational independence. As a result, the constitutional reforms did not shift power away from the palace; instead, they maintained a dual governing structure in which formal democratic institutions are subordinate to the monarch, with no effective checks on royal authority.
HRF classifies Morocco as ruled by a fully authoritarian regime.
King Mohammed VI has ruled Morocco since July 1999. He ascended the throne following the death of his father, King Hassan II. The Moroccan monarchy, specifically the Alaouite dynasty, has been in power since the early 17th century. Despite promising to implement reforms, King Mohammed VI’s reign has been marked by authoritarianism. The monarchy maintains significant power, limits political pluralism, suppresses dissent, and violates human rights, including restricting freedom of expression and assembly. In 2011, widespread protests in Morocco, prompted in part by the February 20 Movement and what is commonly referred to as the Arab Spring, demanded an end to corruption, separation of powers, and the establishment of democracy. In response to public pressure, King Mohammed VI announced limited reforms, including constitutional changes. However, the protest movement rejected these reforms and the approval process, as the new constitution allowed the king to maintain significant power over the legislative, executive, and judicial branches.
Elections are a sham, to the point where the real, mainstream political opposition does not have a realistic chance to meaningfully compete and possibly win. Political parties exist, but many are seen as co-opted or controlled by the regime, or the Makhzen, a network of elites with direct ties to the regime who control state institutions. The regime insulates itself from public anger by regularly causing political fragmentation among the opposition, and thus diminishes the potential for a unified front against the ruling establishment, as co-opted figures adopt a more conciliatory stance toward the regime’s policies.
Independent media, political leaders, civil society leaders, organizations, and regular people face overt and systematic retaliation if they openly criticize or challenge the regime. Activists, journalists, and ordinary citizens who criticize the regime often face harassment, intimidation, and legal repercussions. The authorities closely monitor public discourse and falsely charge anyone perceived as a threat to the regime with offenses such as “undermining state security,” “insulting the monarchy,” or “spreading false information.” The pervasive risk of arrest and prosecution instills a climate of fear among the public, discouraging public protests and open criticism of the regime.
Institutions largely fail to serve as independent checks on the regime. The king heads the judicial system, exerts significant influence over judicial proceedings, which have been systematically utilized as legal mechanisms to manipulate the judicial process against dissenters. The king, also retains significant control over key areas, including the appointment of the prime minister and his cabinet, with some key ministries, like the Ministry of Interior, being headed by officials aligned with the palace, which diminishes the parliament’s ability to hold such officials accountable, since political parties and legislators are expected to operate within a framework that favors regime interests.
Elections are a sham, to the point where the real, mainstream political opposition does not have a realistic chance to meaningfully compete and possibly win. Every five years, Morocco holds parliamentary elections. However, the Moroccan regime and the Makhzen have limited the effectiveness of their political opponents’ capacity to engage in meaningful political discourse. Historically, the Makhzen has relied on a system of propping up political parties, co-opting political elites, and merging existing parties into larger, regime-controlled parties. In this way, the Makhzen maintains the illusion of competitive political engagement, where parties loyal to the monarchy enjoy substantial backing and support from the palace, all the while preventing any single party from posing a threat to the monarchy’s power. For example, the Alliance of Liberties, a moderate and reformist party formed in 2002, was absorbed into the Authenticity and Modernity Party (Parti Authenticité et Modernité – PAM), a regime-aligned party, in 2008.
Because of the regime’s co-optation and dominance over Moroccan politics, the genuine, mainstream political opposition has no realistic opportunity to form political groups, compete fairly, or achieve majority coalitions to govern effectively. The Makhzen responded to the February 20 Movement by resorting to dissent-stifling tactics like reshuffling cabinets, holding electorally engineered legislative elections, and propping up a controlled opposition group, the Justice and Development Party (PJD), to absorb protest demands and serve as a counterweight to popular dissent. In October 2016, the Makhzen deliberately hampered the PJD’s capacity to form a majority coalition by staging a political impasse that King Mohammed VI later used as an excuse to remove the PJD’s then-leader, Abdelilah Benkirane, from his position as prime minister and appoint Saadeddine Othmani, then the PJD’s deputy leader and a former foreign minister, as his replacement. Othmani appeared to quickly form a coalition that included a larger number of palace allies, such as the National Rally of Independents (RNI), which eventually took control of key ministries, while the PJD’s role was diminished. Similarly, regime agents infiltrated the Istiqlal, one of Morocco’s oldest and most historically significant political parties. In September 2017, Hamid Chabat, Istiqlal’s then-leader, accused “some political parties and state agencies” of aggressively attempting to influence the party’s internal dynamics and leadership elections. Chabat cautioned that if Istiqlal party members chose a candidate “co-opted by the state” as party secretary-general, then the Istiqlal party may effectively become a regime-run organization.
The regime unfairly bars real, mainstream opposition parties and candidates from competing in elections, including indirectly through judicial prosecution that leads to disqualification. Compared to pro-regime parties, candidates from smaller opposition parties have faced several challenges, including regime interference, limitations on their ability to campaign, or difficulty accessing media outlets. For example, since its founding in 1995, the Democratic Way (DW), a Marxist-Leninist political party, has strongly opposed the Mahkzen. A founding member of the Democratic Way, Abdallah El Harif spent a total of 14 years in prison for organizing political activities, including election boycotts and democratic reform protests. As a result, the DW is frequently referred to by the regime as a “virulent” organization, and it is specifically criticized for standing up for the Sahrawi people’s right to self-determination in Western Sahara—a territory which the Moroccan regime unilaterally annexed in 1976 and has since remained under its control. Due to these activities, the DW has been increasingly denied access to public premises and public media and has been left unable to hold regular meetings. In addition to El Harif, several notable DW figures were arrested after calling for democratic reforms and election boycotts ahead of the 2021 parliamentary elections, including DW party leader Mustafa Brahma, and members Zahra Aslaf, Yassine Zouhir, Chafik Bahmad, and Moulazim Lakbir.
The regime engages in significant electoral law manipulation, voting irregularities, and electoral fraud. The regime has used gerrymandering to ensure that regime-aligned parties dominate the political landscape at the expense of opposition groups. Ahead of the 2021 election, the regime, through the Ministry of Interior, amended the electoral quotient rules, causing widespread controversy, since the amendment favored regime-aligned groups. Previously, the number of parliamentary seats was distributed based on the votes obtained by each party divided by the total number of valid ballots—the denominator. Hence, the PJD obtained 125 seats in 2016 by mobilizing almost 1.6 million voters out of a total of 5.8 million Moroccans who voted that year. However, the changed electoral rules of 2021 stipulated that the number of seats allocated must be based on the total number of eligible voters, not valid ballots. Thus, the denominator became much larger, which diminished the number of seats that parties, particularly the PJD, can obtain in any city, and transferred the reins of governance to the RNI and its ally, PAM, both traditionally associated with the palace.
Independent media, political leaders, civil society leaders, organizations, and regular people face overt and systematic retaliation if they openly criticize or challenge the regime. The Moroccan regime maintains its authority through a pervasive and multi-layered system of repression designed to silence dissent and monopolize the national narrative. This strategy relies on the aggressive manipulation of the media landscape, where regime-controlled outlets serve as instruments for propaganda while independent voices are neutralized through censorship, deportation, and “character assassination.” Beyond mere information control, the regime has increasingly weaponized vague penal codes, utilizing fabricated moral and financial charges to delegitimize political critics and civil society leaders. This institutionalized harassment is further compounded by the violent curtailment of public assembly, as evidenced by the draconian sentencing of grassroots activists and the bureaucratic strangulation of human rights organizations.
The regime heavily manipulates media coverage in its favor, with state-controlled outlets regularly portraying the regime favorably while marginalizing dissenting viewpoints. Between 1999 and 2007, the regime banned or censored at least 23 publications. Printed newspapers are almost all state-subsidized, and most print media abide by unspoken rules, including avoiding criticism of the monarchy, the military, the intelligence services, and the Western Sahara issue. The regime routinely shuts down foreign and independent outlets and retaliates against independent journalists, often through character assassination plots. For instance, in September 2023, Thérèse Di Campo, a freelance photojournalist, and Quentin Müller, the deputy editor of the French magazine Marianne, were both arbitrarily detained and deported from Morocco after they met with “Moroccan personalities under surveillance” and amassing “exclusive information portraying an increasingly harsh regime, frightened by any show of local protest.” In February 2018, Taoufik Bouachrine, the editor-in-chief of Akhbar Al-Yaoum, a prominent newspaper, was arrested in connection with his critical editorials on Moroccan regime officials and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman, and was first sentenced to 12 years in prison, with three years later added, under the false pretense of engaging in human trafficking and rape. He was freed via a mass royal pardon in July 2024, along with several other journalists and activists.
The regime seriously intimidates independent and dissenting media, political leaders, civil society leaders, organizations, and members of the general public, or otherwise seriously and unfairly obstructs their work. False claims of sexual assaults and extramarital encounters, which allegedly violate vaguely worded penal laws, have been abusively and consistently utilized by the regime in recent years as a tool to suppress and jail critical journalists and tarnish their reputations. Dissidents, including journalists, are regularly targeted with smear campaigns promoted through state-controlled media outlets, resulting in harassment even after their release from prison. Mohammed Ziane, the head of the Moroccan Liberal Party and a former human rights minister (1996-1997), has been an outspoken politician and critic of the Moroccan government in recent years. After criticizing the regime in its handling of protests, and following a verbal clash with Abdellatif Hammouchi, a close associate of King Mohammed VI, and then-director of the Moroccan Police and head of the Moroccan internal intelligence agency, the General Directorate for Territorial Surveillance (DGST), Ziane was sentenced to three years in prison on a number of bogus charges issued after regime security personnel allegedly captured video purporting to show Ziane in a compromising situation with a married woman. In July 2024, he was sentenced to another five years’ imprisonment on false charges of corruption and embezzling funds from the Moroccan Liberal Party in 2015. In addition to silencing dissidents, the regime has systematically silenced organizations known for their outspoken criticism of human rights abuses in Morocco, including issues related to freedom of expression, political freedom, social justice, arbitrary detentions, and police violence. Although the Moroccan Association for Human Rights (AMDH) was not outright shut down, it has faced increasing harassment and intimidation from the regime. In 2019, at least 54 out of 100 AMDH bureaus in Morocco were denied their registration documents, which prohibited them from legally operating.
The regime seriously and unfairly represses dissenting protests and seeks to control and limit protests through legal repercussions, surveillance, and direct police violence. The Hirak Rif protests, which broke out in October 2016 and continued into the summer of 2017, were triggered by the death of Mouhcine Fikri, a fish merchant who was reportedly crushed in a garbage truck while trying to retrieve fish that had been confiscated on police orders, according to witness testimonies. The regime responded to the Rif-Hirak protests with heavy police crackdowns, arrests of key leaders, and disproportionately lengthy sentences for activists, which drew international condemnation. Fifty-three Rif-Hirak activists, many of whom had been held in arbitrary detention since 2017, were sentenced to prison terms of up to 20 years in June 2018. Among them, the leader of the movement, Nasser Zefzafi, was given a 20-year sentence for allegedly criticizing the monarchy’s influence over religious institutions during the protests. In May 2017, a year after the crackdown on the Hirak Rif Movement began, the regime prosecuted more than 800 people in connection with the movement, sentencing more than 300 of those to prison time. Approximately one-third of those detained in the Rif region were charged solely for expressing their support for the Hirak, primarily on Facebook. Judicial repression and harassment increased significantly following the 2011 uprisings, and by the end of 2021, there were over 350 political prisoners and hundreds of disappeared people, Moroccans and Western Saharans alike.
The regime seriously and unfairly censored dissenting speech. During Mohammed VI’s first year in power, eight local and international newspapers were censored for publishing stories on corruption within the regime, namely in the armed forces and high administrative circles, and for questioning the regime’s policy in the annexed Western Sahara territory. These included the French-language weekly magazine Le Journal and its Arabic sister publication, Al-Sahifa, and Demain, a weekly satirical journal. The regime banned Demain in May 2003 and sentenced its founder, Ali Lmrabet, to four years in prison for allegedly “insulting the person of the king,” attacking Morocco’s “territorial integrity,” and “attacking the monarchy.” While Lmrabet received a royal pardon nine months into his sentence, the regime’s efforts to silence him continued. In April 2005, he faced further punitive measures, receiving a heavy fine and a decade-long ban on publishing Demain. This action followed an article that challenged the official narrative concerning refugees from Western Sahara, implying they had been forcibly displaced by the occupying Moroccan military. The regime delivered the final blow to his career in Morocco in 2015 when it refused to renew his essential identity and proof of residency documents, thereby legally preventing him from reopening the paper or its website and engaging in journalism.
Institutions largely fail to serve as independent checks on the regime. The king heads the High Judicial Council and therefore controls the nominations, promotions, and disciplinary proceedings of judges. As a result, the Moroccan regime has systematically leveraged the judicial system to manipulate the political landscape in ways that favor parties aligned with the monarchy. While Morocco has a legislative body, its role is often limited to ratifying decisions made by the executive and the monarchy. The monarchy’s dominant role in appointing officials, controlling legislation, and intervening in governance means that the parliament primarily implements the king’s agenda rather than independently shaping policy. The regime purposely sustains this environment of limited accountability to preserve its authority and prevent challenges to its legitimacy.
The regime has systematically undermined institutional independence to the point where cases or issues challenging the governing authority are no longer brought or are frequently dismissed. In response to the regime’s abrupt electoral rules changes ahead of the 2021 elections, the PJD, the disadvantaged party, filed a motion with the regime-controlled Constitutional Court. Instead of blocking these changes, the court declared itself not competent to rule on the electoral mechanism (Constitutional Court Decision 118/21, 7 April 2021), effectively granting the regime-backed RNI and parties aligned with it the ability to engineer electoral outcomes. As a result, the RNI, a party close to the palace, which has been part of all coalition governments since 2008, formed a regime-backed cabinet coalition with the liberal RNI, PAM, and the conservative Istiqlal.
Courts have systematically, frequently, and unfairly failed to check, or enabled, the regime’s attempts to repress criticism or retaliate against those who express open opposition to its most prominent, widely publicized policies. Instead of launching investigations into the claims of protesters, the judicial system was used to suppress the Hirak Rif movement by treating it like a political ideology backed by foreign groups. In June 2018, Zefzafi and dozens of other political activists received prison sentences of up to 20 years in an unfair trial. By rendering lengthy sentences against the movement’s leaders and hundreds of protesters for allegedly “threatening national security,” the judiciary effectively blocked the movement’s political reform aspirations.
The regime uses the judiciary to harass dissidents in a systematic and repeated cycle, often subjecting them to sustained legal harassment over many months or even years. For example, before he was incarcerated, Omar Radi, a human rights activist, was targeted with four different legal procedures, summoned on three different offenses, and harassed with over one hundred hours of interrogation in four weeks. Radi’s case is part of a pattern used by the Moroccan regime to arrest, try, and imprison dissidents on false sexual misconduct and espionage charges. Because the regime frequently brings slanderous charges against its opponents, including bogus rape charges, this has allowed regime courts to cite consideration for defendants’ honor to be a valid enough reason to hold trials behind closed doors, raising fears of gross misconduct and unfair trials.
Judicial, legislative, and executive institutions have systematically, frequently, and unfairly failed to hold regime officials accountable. On numerous occasions, judges have used the penal code to extend impunity to regime actors at the expense of plaintiffs. For instance, journalists have been forced to compensate regime officials who have used defamation and libel laws to shield themselves from investigative reporting. Journalist Hamid Elmahdaouy was targeted by the authorities in June 2015 for his reporting on the death of a man while in police custody in Al-Hoceima. He had written a series of articles detailing the incident, which led to his conviction on dubious charges, including “insulting the police force,” “false reporting,” and “slanderous denunciation.” As a result, Elmahdaouy received a four-month suspended prison sentence and was heavily fined, ordered to pay 100,000 Moroccan dirhams (roughly $10,200) in compensation to the head of the national police (DGSN), whose formal complaint initiated the prosecution. Significantly, throughout the entire legal process, the court failed to investigate or even inquire whether an independent investigation had been launched into the death that originally prompted Elmahdaouy’s critical articles.
The regime has systematically subjected legislative institutions to reforms that abolish or seriously weaken their independence or operational effectiveness. The 2011 constitution entrenched overreaching powers for the monarch, consolidating authority in favor of the king, without checks from the executive, legislative, or judicial branches. Among other powers, the king appoints the prime minister—without requiring parliamentary approval—and selects cabinet members based on the prime minister’s recommendations. Article 52 of the new constitution states that the king’s speeches, decrees, and communications cannot be disputed, effectively allowing the king’s decrees to become law without legislative approval. Article 96 further grants the king the power to dissolve one or both chambers of parliament at will. Additionally, according to Article 55, the king has the authority to sign and ratify treaties, with parliamentary approval processes serving only as a legitimation tool. Even Article 107, which details the separate powers of the judiciary, is ambiguous, since the monarch presides over and monitors Morocco’s High Judicial Council.
Furthermore, the new language in the 2011 constitution states that the king is responsible for interpreting the multiple ambiguities, rather than an independent judiciary or legislative body. For example, Article 59 refers vaguely to incidents that impede, rather than disrupt, the functioning of institutions. This ambiguity is further compounded by the fact that the king is the sole arbiter of what constitutes an extraordinary circumstance warranting exceptional measures. The 2011 constitution nominally granted the prime minister authority by requiring them to be chosen from the largest party in parliament, but in practice, the regime has systematically weakened the prime minister’s executive authority. Despite calls for reform, the 2011 constitution preserved an opaque dual cabinet system, with one being led by the prime minister and responsible for day-to-day governance, and a second, presided over by the king, who oversees the Council of Ministers. Numerous control mechanisms and veto rights ensure that real decision-making remains concentrated in the monarchy, effectively sidelining the prime minister’s executive authority and limiting their operational independence. As a result, the constitutional reforms did not shift power away from the palace; instead, they maintained a dual governing structure in which formal democratic institutions are subordinate to the monarch, with no effective checks on royal authority.
