Fouad Mourtada: The Facebook prisoner
March 5th, 2008I’m sure you’ve all heard of this story by now (see all international coverage here.)
This is a video documenting Fouad’s case, and all the wonderful rallies that were held for him across the world. From the official Help Fouad campaign site:
Please do what you guys can to spread the word. This case is a real blow for Morocco, which we had very high hopes for until this devastating case.
To the good folks at Help Fouad: Keep up the great work, we’re rallying right behind you.
PS: Fouad Mourtada is not to be confused with the Saudi Fouad, a blogger who was arrested 3 months ago and is still in prison without charge.
Free Fouad Mourtada, Free Fouad Alfarhan, Free Kareem Amer!
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[...] Hisham wants to talk about “Fouad Mourtada, the Moroccan engineer who got kidnapped then tortured and eventually sentenced to three years in [...]
He looks very young..
I thought only in iran they would arrest a blogger, I am trying to view the video, from where I am, I can see it like a slide show, a very slow slide show and s bit of its music every time the slide changes. But even that is very effective, ty for posting, it is encouraging to see people demonstrating for his rights. Its been a long time we haven’t had much demonstrations for our rights, some students have, but that is in their universities or some activists in front of the UN, any kind of demonstration is harshly handled, unless the government calls for that, and that is sure to boost their outlined wants. SOme time back, a few girls were arrested in a park in Tehran collecting signitures for the onemillionvoice movement.
Fouad Mourtada: The Facebook prisoner (w/ Video)…
Fouad Mourtada was arrested and sentenced to 3 years in jail for making a fake facebook profile of Prince Moulay Rachid of Morocco……
Basically , it was a case of identity theft. I know that it’s a serious offense, but why take it to the extreme like that? It’s not the first time that someone has impersonated someone online. And with social network websites like that out there, it’s not that suprising. Many other people have taken the opportunity to create a whole nother persona online, creating almost an “avatar” of themself and change everything about themselves. Its wrong that the goverment had looked Fouad up and tracked him down, when all he did was impersonate the prince.
There’s no way they can press charges against him, when hundreds of people pretend to be people everyday. If they want to charge him for anything, they would have to charge and arrest all the other people that do the same thing online. That itself would be massive chaos trying to hunt down EVERY single person that has a facebook profile. Or they could at least make the charges less serious. Its not like hes trying to corrupt the goverment and take charge, he just was posting his veiws. If everyone is so conerned about these kinds of issues on the net, why not just take down these websites? Then this problem wouldn’t be as serious as it is.
Mourtada was careless and rash in his decsion to pose as a prince of Morocco, but he should not have to be imprisoned for three years. A fine I can understand, for breeching the terms of use of Facebook. But to ruin a man’s life for over a joke seems harsh. In America someone would not go to jail for impersonating George Bush, however the rules may be harsher in Morocco. I don’t completely understand what harm one profile claiming to be a prince could do. What is he really getting punished for? Do many of the world’s leaders surf Facebook and look for the others’ profiles? Do they judge them based on what their favorite movies and songs are?
In America there are such profiles as these, where people set up accounts claiming to be famous bands or celebrities. The only effect this has is for some to have an addition to their friend list. However, I do comend Facebook for keeping their standards and refusing to release information about Mourtada. They may have taken international scrutiny, but they did not betray the trust of their users. Being someone who has personal information on a worlwide blog space like Facebook, I know I wouldn’t want my information being handed out left and right. Now if there was a major crime being investigated and authorites had a good enough reason to search these profiles then I would agree with the Moroccan government.
This 21 year old did a form of a crime by making this fake facebook. He says he did it only as a joke but it turned out to be more than just a joke. He ended up getting three years in jail. He is 21 years old (an adult) so he knows not to do these sort of things, it is wrong and can get people in trouble and in his case he did get in trouble. In some ways people may think of him as committing identity theft. The Morracan government charged him for this crime by putting him in jail, it would be nice if there was some system in place for these sort of crimes when no actual harm is done, such as money being stolen. Fouad Mourtada did a very wrong thing and deserves a punishment but maybe not as harsh of a punishment.
That would fall under the banner of censorship
No official confirmation yet, but according to Sami Ben Ghariba he has been given a full royal pardon