Fátima has just returned from visiting her husband in Mohammedía prison, 20 kilometers from Casablanca. His daughters, aged five and three, have just returned from visiting their father at his workplace, a kind of factory or office with a pink-painted facade. “I told them he had to go to work,” the woman said. The lie has nothing to do with shame over the crime committed, but with the need to protect children from situations they may not be able to handle. Zouhir Ainaaissa, a Spanish citizen born in Morocco, is serving a two-year prison sentence for sharing messages and videos on Facebook about the Rif protests in 2017. He has already been behind bars for 14 months and has so far unsuccessfully asked to serve his sentence. in Spain.
Zouhir, 35, has lived in Catalonia since he was a child. His parents left the Rif region from which they came and settled in Montesquiu (Barcelona), a town of about 1,000 inhabitants in the interior of Catalonia. It hasn’t moved from here. When he met Fátima, he lured her to the city, where they made a living and raised a family. Both work in the same company: she is an administrative employee, he is a refrigerator technician. Despite his imprisonment, “the job will be waiting for him,” as the boss promised Fátima.
The businessman’s empathy is a sign of the affection that the residents of Montesquiu feel for Zouhir and his family. His parents had taken part in the so-called “language pairs”, which allowed locals and newcomers to meet to promote the learning of the Catalan language. Mayor Carles Colomo also remembers the Ainaaissa’s participation in the city’s festivals and how they kept “a few pieces of chicken” for themselves in the popular calçotades. The city council unanimously approved a motion calling for his release and return home, denouncing that he had become the victim of an attack on freedom of expression.
Peaceful family life was interrupted during the holidays of 2022. “We were wondering where we should go, whether we should stay here or go to Morocco. We haven’t been away for a long time. In the end we made a decision,” explains Fátima. They traveled to the south of the peninsula and traveled by ferry with the two girls. When they disembarked in Nador on the night of August 8, police took Zouhir into custody without giving any reason. He didn’t know it (he couldn’t know it), but the authorities had issued a search and arrest warrant for him for events that had occurred four years earlier.
In the spring of 2017, violent protests broke out in the Rif (northern Morocco) led by young people fed up with the lack of opportunities. Neither the remittances from migrants from Europe nor the hashish cultivation that enriched a few had improved their living conditions. The mobilizations were harshly suppressed by the Alawite monarchy, but videos of the events in cities such as Al Hoceima were circulated on social networks. From his home in Montesquiu, Zouhir shared some of these videos and news on his Facebook profile (back in 2018).
Fátima in Montesquiu asks her husband to serve his remaining sentence in Spain so that she can be closer to her daughters.massimiliano minocri
What influences the most is what happens next. So you don’t miss anything, subscribe.
Subscribe to
Morocco’s fervor towards any movement with autonomous or separatist undertones is extreme. And its surveillance capabilities have been demonstrated through the use of systems such as Pegasus, the Israeli cell phone spying software. Zouhir’s case also shows that the regime effectively monitors social networks, even of citizens who have lived abroad for decades and, like him, only use Spanish passports. “Zouhir shared these videos in Spain, but the Moroccan penal code allows the prosecution of crimes committed outside the country under a single formula, that of a threat to national security,” says Marc Serra, the family’s lawyer, who has faced many difficulties is trying to get the man to serve the rest of his sentence in Spain.
Serving the sentence in Spain
Zouhir was sentenced to two years in prison and a fine of 10,000 dirhams (about 1,000 euros) for the crime of insulting the flag and symbols of the Kingdom and inciting these acts by electronic means. The proven facts of the verdict only prove that he distributed the videos of the Rif protest. Nothing more, he didn’t even leave comments on these posts. “When the protests subsided, he stopped sharing posts, his Facebook was inactive,” says Fátima, who was shocked by an arrest that has changed family life. The man was convicted at first instance and on appeal with a speed that the Spanish justice system would wish for. He has already been in prison for 14 months because prison sentences in Morocco are almost completely served.
The lawyer (and Montesquiu with him) try to reunite the family as quickly as possible. Last February, a file was opened so that he could serve his sentence in a Catalan prison as a Spanish citizen. The petition has not yet been resolved as time passes and the two years in prison approaches. Communication is not easy and always takes place indirectly via the Spanish consulate or embassy. “We are completely unaware of the status of the proceedings. He meets the requirements because he has Spanish nationality and has paid the fine. However, it appears that the prosecution has not yet decided. “We are not making any progress,” complains the lawyer. At the same time, Zouhir has also applied for his provisional release.
From his cell in Mohammedia, a pink-painted prison where security is more lax, Zouhir can barely communicate with his family. He has the support of a brother who lives in Morocco. But he cannot receive letters from his wife or drawings from his daughters. Fátima was able to visit him three times this year; the last one, this week. “I saw him well. Hold on, but good.” The visits are short and somewhat disappointing because, unlike in Spain, there are no presence rooms, but only a huge room in which the other prisoners are: for the girls, the employees of a father who is already there been away from home for too long and who they have, says Fátima and is really looking forward to being home again.
You can follow EL PAÍS Catalunya on Facebook and Xor sign up here to receive our weekly newsletter
Subscribe to continue reading
Read without limits
_