Moroccan cartoonist jailed for four years in king-insult case

A court in Casablanca sentenced 22-year-old Yasser Mounbir to four years in prison and fined him 40,000 Moroccan dirhams, his lawyer Farouk Mehdaoui said.

Mounbir had posted caricatures of King Mohammed VI on Instagram and was arrested in June. AFP and RFI report that he was found guilty of insulting both the king and public officials. It is not clear how the prison sentence was apportioned between the two offences.

Under Morocco’s penal code, defamation, insults or invasion of the king’s privacy can carry a prison sentence of six months to two years. The penalty can be doubled when the offence is committed electronically.

Mehdaoui has announced that the defence intends to appeal. Mounbir’s lawyers told RFI that the sentence was disproportionate; they also challenged the conduct of the investigation and the legal classification of the offences, according to Moroccan news site H24info.

The Moroccan Association for Human Rights has called for Mounbir’s release, citing freedom of expression.