Mohammed VI, King of Morocco
Photo: Thomas Trutschel / Photothek via Getty Images Morocco’s king has pardoned a journalist, her fiance and the medical team who last month were found guilty of procuring and performing an abortion. The country’s penal code bars abortion except in cases when the mother’s life is endangered.
Mohammed VI’s pardon was granted on October 16.
Hajar Raissouni, 28, had been sentenced last month to a year imprisonment for procuring an abortion and for fornication. Her fiance, Rifaat al-Amin, was also given a years’ imprisonment, and her doctor, Mohammed Jamal Belkeziz, was given two years in prison and a two-year ban on practising medicine.
A nurse and an assistant at the Rabat obstetrics-gynecology clinic were given suspended sentences.
The pardon was communicated by a statement from the justice ministry saying the king’s act was “within a framework of royal compassion and clemency” and considered his concern “to preserve the future of the two fiances who intended to found a family in conformity with religious precepts and the law, despite the error they committed and which led to the legal proceedings”.
Raissouni writes for Akhbar Al-Yaoum, which is critical of the Moroccan government.
Prosecutors have said her arrest has “nothing to do with her profession as a journalist”, but some worried it was politically motivated.
Raissouni was arrested in August as she left the clinic.
Saad Sahli, a lawyer for Raissouni and al-Amin, said that Raissouni had been receiving treatment for internal bleeding at the clinic where she was arrested.
After her arrest, Raissouni was taken to hospital where she was given a gynecological exam. Prosecutors say there were indications of pregnancy and that she had received a “late voluntary abortion”.