185,000 people have been subjected to prosecutions following the enforcement of a health emergency’ state in Morocco, said the Presidency of the Public Prosecutor.
In its annual report, the Presidency of the Public Prosecutor devoted a section to data figures about the violation of health emergency’s state between March 24, 2020, and the end of December of the same year.
Following recording the first cases of COVID-19 in Morocco in March, the state amended new “provisional” laws, in particular those provided for by Decree-Law 2.20.292 enacting provisions specific to the health emergency in the country.
Based on these provisional rules, nearly 149,000 Moroccans have been prosecuted for violating the health emergency measures. While over 36,500 faced the court for committing acts incriminated by the Moroccan Penal Code.
Just 4% of people involved in abusing the emergency law have been remanded in custody, as in the majority of cases, they have been prosecuted in the provisional release.
The quarantine period (between March and June 2020) witnessed the registration of the highest number of lawsuits, as in May 62,000 people were concerned, nearly 3,000 of them have been remanded in custody.
The number of detainees fell from 1,468 in June 2020 to 54 in July, following the easing of health restrictions.
According to the report, 97% of people prosecuted are men, and 1% are minors (nearly 2,400).
The Public Prosecutor’s Office said that 72 minors, including 6 girls, were placed in preventive detention due to violating the emergency law and committing other offenses like drug trafficking, theft, and violence.
Since the announcement of detecting the first case of the virus in the world, conspiracy theories about its origin and its dangers swept social media, and Morocco was no exception.
The Public Prosecutor said these acts have “impacted the trust that citizens place in institutions and the media”, and “hampered the efforts made by the public authorities in order to manage the spread of the virus.”
Amid the pandemic, the state increased its efforts to stop the spread of “fake” information about the epidemiological situation in the kingdom as 126 people were prosecuted, including two juveniles in a state of freedom.
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