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RABAT: A Moroccan appeals court on Tuesday handed activist Said Ait Mahdi a one-year prison term, up from the initial three-month term he had been sentenced to for defamation, his lawyer said.
Ait Mahdi, who leads a group for victims of a major 2023 earthquake, has been in detention since December 23 after criticizing the kingdom’s response to the disaster.
In January, a Marrakech court had sentenced him to three months in jail for “defamation, insult and the publication of false allegations aimed at infringing on privacy.”
On Tuesday, the Marrakech appeals court “increased the sentence... to one year” behind bars, lawyer Mohamed El Ghalloussi told AFP, calling it a “very harsh and shocking” ruling.
Three other defendants in the case who had been initially acquitted were given four months in jail each for “insulting public officials,” the lawyer said.
According to Ghalloussi, the case was based on “complaints from local officials following social media posts they considered offensive.”
El Haouz province, to the south of Marrakech, was one of the areas hit hardest by the 6.8 magnitude earthquake that struck the region in September 2023, killing close to 3,000 people and wounding 5,600.
It also destroyed around 60,000 homes in the High Atlas mountains, forcing many families to live in tents through the winter.
Ait Mahdi’s group has campaigned for faster reconstruction and more aid to those affected.
The Moroccan authorities said in December they had issued 57,000 reconstruction permits and that more than 35,000 homes had been or were in the process of being rebuilt.
The authorities have put in place an $11 billion, five-year reconstruction and development plan for the six provinces hit by the disaster.
 

CAIRO: Syria’s interim President Ahmed Al-Sharaa on Tuesday called on the international community to pressure Israel to “immediately” withdraw its troops from the south, as he attended his first Arab summit since assuming office.
Since Sharaa’s Islamist group Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham (HTS) spearheaded an offensive that toppled longtime Syrian president Bashar Assad on December 8, Israel has deployed troops to a UN-patrolled buffer zone that has separated Israeli and Syrian forces on the strategic Golan Heights since 1974.
Israel has occupied much of the Golan Heights since 1967 and later annexed the area abutting Syria’s southeast in a move not recognized by the United Nations.
Beyond ground incursions, Israeli forces have also carried out repeated air strikes against Syrian military sites in recent days.
“We urge the international community to uphold its legal and moral commitments by supporting Syria’s rights and pressuring Israel to immediately withdraw from southern Syria,” Sharaa told a summit of Arab leaders in Cairo.
The “hostile (Israeli) expansion is not only a violation of Syrian sovereignty, but also a direct threat to security and peace in the entire region,” he said.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu last month demanded “the complete demilitarization of southern Syria” and said his country would not accept the new Syrian authorities to be present there.
Sharaa was in Cairo for an Arab League summit on Gaza, his first such meeting since ousting Assad nearly three months ago.
The Syrian presidency published images of Sharaa meeting with senior officials including United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas and European Union chief Antonio Costa on the sidelines of the summit.
Guterres and Sharaa “exchanged views about the historic opportunity to chart a new course for Syria as well as the challenges facing the country,” according to the UN.
The United Nations envoy for Syria Geir Pedersen in a statement strongly condemned Israel’s “military escalations” including air strikes” on its northern neighbor.
Under Assad, Syria was suspended from the Arab League over his deadly 2011 crackdown on pro-democracy protests which spiralled into a devastating civil war.
In 2023, Syria under Assad was allowed to return to the bloc after years of regional isolation.

A UN Security Council committee approved a travel ban exemption for Sharaa, enabling him to visit Egypt for Tuesday’s summit despite his inclusion on a sanctions list.
The meeting was called in response to a widely criticized proposal by President Donald Trump for the United States to take over Gaza and force its Palestinian inhabitants to relocate to Egypt or Jordan.
Sharaa has called Trump’s proposal “a very huge crime that cannot happen.”