It was politics rather than religion that spooked the authorities in Morocco and landed a hip-hop artist in jail for a year. Mouad Belghouat, a rapper who goes by the name El Haqed — Arabic for “The Enraged” or “The Sullen” — was sentenced last week in connection with his song about the country’s police force, “Dogs of the State.”
An image of an officer with a donkey head in a video for the song posted on YouTube appeared to have angered the authorities even more than the lyrics.

“You are paid to protect the citizens, not to steal their money,” Mr. Belghouat raps, according to a translation by The Associated Press. “Did your commander order you to take money from the poor?”
The 24-year-old Mr. Belghouat, who also writes his name alphanumerically as l7a9ed, is an outspoken critic of the government and his music is closely associated with Morocco’s February 20 protest movement. He was jailed in September for fighting with a supporter of the Moroccan government, charges that opposition activists have said were trumped up, The Associated Press reported. Released after four months, he was arrested again in late March for the song.
Mr. Belghouat’s lawyers said there was no evidence connecting him to the production or publication of the video online, and Human Rights Watch condemned his trial and harsh sentence as a breach of Morocco’s constitutional guarantees of freedom of expression.
The video was posted on a YouTube account named for Kamal Amari, who activists have said died during antigovernment protests last year. The same channel also includes many videos clip of Moroccan protests.
The music video for Mr. Belghouat’s song, like many activist productions, includes caricatured images of the Moroccan king, photographs of protests and images of alleged police brutality. At least one version that was still available on YouTube on Tuesday was uploaded on Jan. 13, a day after Mr. Belghouat was released from prison, when he promised to continue writing protest songs against the government.
“I will continue to spread my message and denounce the massive corruption in our country,” he told Reuters at the time. A video report from the French channel TV5 Monde showed crowds hoisting Mr. Belghouat in the air after his release from the shorter prison term.
The treatment of the young rapper has been seen as a test of Morocco’s willingness to tolerate dissent and King Mohammed VI’s promise of a peaceful revolution through constitutional reforms, Allison L. McManus wrote on Jadaliyya, a Web site produced by a network of academic writers associated with the Arab Studies Journal at Georgetown University in Washington.
“Until the monarch’s power is diminished and authority is given to an independent judiciary, political dissent in Morocco remains a risky undertaking,” she wrote in April. “This is clear from the story of El Haqed and the dozens of other ‘prisoners of conscience’ being held in Moroccan prisons.”

Source: The Lede - NYTimes.com