Casablanca- Two female correspondents for the Moroccan TV channel Medi1 were verbally and physically assaulted by security officers (gendarmes) on Thursday, on the highway connecting Casablanca to Bouznika.
The two correspondents, Fatiha Ouali, a journalist, and Hayat Ziani, a camerawoman, were sent to the scene to shoot a report on the Highway Code as part of the weekly show “Bi Douni Haraj,” broadcast on Medi1.
The two correspondents’ presence coincided with a car crash that occurred shortly after their arrival to the highway.
Attempting to tape the car crash scene, the two correspondents were met with hostility from the police officers present there. They were “slapped and kicked, and one of them was pulled by the hair to the ground and humiliated.”
The journalists’ assistant was also physically assaulted after he intervened to spare his co-workers the police officers’ rage, according to the same source.
In a press release published on Saturday, the Moroccan Union of Labor (UMT) firmly denounced the alleged assault on Med1’s journalists.
Edited by Katrina Bushko