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Rachid Niny

Rachid Niny

Rachid Niny is the General Director of Al Akhbar daily newspaper and one of Al Massae’s co-founders. Il also launched TéléMaroc in 2017.

After spending three years as an illegal immigrant in Spain from 1997 to 2000, an experience alternating small jobs from which he wrote the book “Journal of a clandestine immigrant” in Arabic, he came back to Morocco to work at the then newly created Assabah daily newspaper, for which he launched his controversial chronicle “Chouf t’chouf”, that rapidly became a success. Meanwhile, Niny was also hosting the show ‘’Nostalgia’’ on the TV station “2M”.

In 2006, “Chouf t’chouf” was censored by the EcoMédias board as the column had become too controversial and owed EcoMédias to be the subject of numerous defamation lawsuits.

But Niny did not lose his popularity and his name became a brand. In 2006, he created Al Massae with Taoufik Bouachrine, in which he kept writing his column. Al Massae was an immediately a success and is today one of the most read Arabic newspaper in Morocco.

Niny holds a degree in Arabic language from the Faculty of Arts and Humanities, Mohammedia in 1993, then another one in Arabic poetry in 1994.

Lawsuits:

In November 2007, Al Massae published a front page article about a private party in Ksar El Kebir, describing it as a “gay marriage”. This information, even wrong, became a national polemic. The article cited one of the city’s prosecutors, as one of the presumed guests of the party. Falsely accused, the article described him as a ‘sexual deviant’. A lawsuit was filed against Al Massae and Niny, as its Publishing Director. Al Massae was condemned, in total, to pay 6 million Moroccan Dirhams (MAD) of damages. To this day, it is the biggest sum any Moroccan media outlet or Publishing Director was ever sentenced to pay as damages.

On the 26th of April 2011, Rachid Niny was convoked to a police interrogation that lasted from 11am to 6pm, concerning some of his chronicles where he had talked about the Moroccan secret services. On the 28th, he was arrested and placed in custody after refusing to reveal his sources. On the 30th of April, he was transferred to prison in Casablanca. On the 3rd of May, his request for provisional release was refused. The motives were "attacks on constituted bodies "and" attacks on public figures ". He had denounced corruption scandals in the entourage of the King, pointing in particular to Fouad El Himma, leader of the Party of Authenticity and Modernity (PAM). Niny had also published information about Abdellatif Hammouchi, director of territorial surveillance. He was released on the 28th of April 2012.

In July 2017, Niny was sentenced to pay a 150 000 dh fine to Hamid Chabat, following the libel suit he had filed against him.

 

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