“December 20, 2011

On September the 9th, 2011 Mouad Belghouate, 24, aka « L7a9d », rap artist, was arrested on charges of assault and battery on the person of Mohamed Dali. The latter, a member of the Royalist Alliance, a group that leads, since the beginning of the Moroccan spring, violent actions against the February 20th Movement, had come to bring the artist about to his district of Al Wifaq.

Witnesses of the scene which took place at the foot of Mouad’s parental home are unanimous in recognizing that there were never any blows to the complainant. Despite this, the police refused to take the rapper’s complaint and conducted his arrest and his surrender to the prosecution who charged him with assault and battery, resulting in an inability to work of 45 days, before his incarceration, pending trial.

We, today, present the following observations that we bring to the attention of the national and international public opinion:

• The preventive detention of Mouad, based on a false complaint, is totally unjustified. In addition, the numerous defense witnesses, the lack of criminal record and the existence of guarantees for a presentation of the artist at trial, plead for a provisional release.

• The slowness of the investigation, and postponement of hearings for absence of the complainant, delayed the appearance of the accused to December 5th, while he’s been in custody for more than three months. The trial is expected to open on December 22th. So far the artist remains in prison.

• The complainant, Mohamed Dali, who allegedly slipped into a coma after his altercation with Mouad, took part in violent actions against the newspaper « Akhbar al Yaoum » by burning copies and intimidating journalists, on October the 9th 2011, thirty days after the charges against Mouad, while he had produced a forty five days medical certificate (photo support, appeared in Hespress the same day and in the front page of Akhbar al Yaoum the next day).

• The complainant’s medical certificate refers to a fracture of the nasal septum of which there remains no trace on the picture mentioned above.

Given the above, we, political, civil society actors and Moroccan citizens, support the defense and assert that the reasons for the incarceration of Mouad « L7a9d » Belghouate, lie elsewhere, either in his political involvement within the February 20th Movement and the content of his songs, considered subversive by the Moroccan authorities.

We demand:

• The immediate release of Mouad « L7a9d » Belghouate.
• The holding of a fair trial taking into account the facts of the case presented by the defense.
• The diligence of an independent investigation to determine the responsibilities on the unusual course of the proceedings that chaired the conduct of this case.

Sign the petition by sending an e-mail to: freemouad (a) gmail.com


First signatures:

Mr. Mohamed Bensaid YEDER AIT
Mr. Abderrahim Jamai
Mr. Karim Tazi
Mrs. Farida Belyazid
Mr. Omar BALAFREJ”