Monopoly of the information national system

The regime has monopolized the use of the broadcasting system since its early inception.

Morocco had a long tradition and history of exercising media monopoly (Sami, 1990: 12).

Since its early inception, the political regime has attempted to impose and implement a closed information policy in which contesting political ideas had been actively controlled.

The regime’s efforts had been motivated by a number of different concerns. Defence of Moroccan sovereignty and national security were the chief among these. The regime’s initial attempts to monopolize access to the print press were a direct reaction to the colonial powers. In 1885 the Moroccan Sultan Hassan I planned to ban the foreign press, but was incapable because of his political weakness in the context of imperial concurrence over Morocco (Laroui, 1993: 204).

35 This is understandable in the Moroccan context where the rate of illiteracy is among the highest in the Arab world; about 65 percent of Moroccans are illiterate according the estimates by the UNESCO (UNESCO, 2000). Daily newspaper circulation for the entire country of about 30 millions is about 250,000 (Minister of Communication and Culture).

Meanwhile, on November 25^th, 1922 a Dahir was issued to give the regime the exclusive right to assign radio frequencies. The 1922 Telegraphy provided the regime with exclusive monopoly of the legal regulation and the power to control all matters related to the telegraphic services. The project of the Sultan was to acquire a total hegemonic control over the political, economic and social field.³⁶

Throughout the early years of independence, the regime had been hostile to radio and TV communication outside of its control. Thus, the regime completed its monopoly over the audio-visual system by instituting rigid regulatory policies applying to all broadcasting stations and exercised tight control over the radio networks. The regime controlled all radio channels by entailing various restrictions originating in radio’s role as an official voice of the regime. Political intervention in the running, content and the output of broadcasting system in Morocco was a normal thing.

On October 22^nd, 1959, the regime issued a Dahir through which it monopolized the radio transmission activities and ended foreign radio stations in the country (Alami, 1985). Indeed, on December 31^st, 1959 many private stations were closed. The regime’s advocacy of a closed information system had been designed to justify the information closure it intended to implement to protect the people from “alien and pernicious” ideas, particularly political ones. Restrictions on the information flow has demonstrated the fear of losing its domestic monopoly power over political information for the purpose of staying immune to new information presence.

The audiovisual was a major focus of the regime. Defined by the regime as an instrument of national development, the national media system was promoted as an instrument of economic development and social modernization. The discourses of legitimation for the monopolisation and centralisation of the channels of information and communication stemmed from what was subsumed under the so-called “developmental communication”. As a result, broadcasting must not be left to oppositional forces, which may misuse it. The control of the regime over audiovisual has been a subject of an extensive and long-standing conflict in Morocco for many decades. The regime has claimed that the audiovisual system is a national institution transcending narrow political interests, whereas the opposition has advocated the position that the radio is clearly an ideological apparatus of the regime.

36 The term king was initially introduced into the Moroccan political jargon in 1958.

Political and economic change in the power structure during the 1960s and the emergence of new social and political groups began to affect media relationship between the political regime and the opposition. The party print press criticized the politically conservative role of the Moroccan mass media, particularly audiovisual. They accused the broadcasting system of ignoring the needs of the majority of Moroccans and of propagating an alienating culture that benefited the political interests of regime.

In 1963, the regime decided that the broadcasting system should stay away from any involvement in any political debate during the campaign election (Ben Ashour, 1992:

90). From their parts, leaders of the opposition demanded the possibility to use the channels of the broadcasting system in the election campaign. King Hassan II refused their demand, arguing that the leaders of the opposition should not forget that they had used the channels of the broadcasting system in 1962 not as leaders of political parties but as ministers of his majesty (Ben Ashour, 1992: 90).

During 1962-65 Morocco experienced a high degree of partisan political activity (Darif, 2000: 105). The opposition leaders regarded and used the print press, particularly their newspapers as chief weapons of political agitation because there was no other media alternative for articulating their challenges against the regime (Clausen, 1996: 257). After independence, King Hassan II argued that his aims were to unite the Moroccan nation by unifying the information channels. He conceived the national information system as power resources in the Moroccan political field. Partisan newspapers reflected their opposition to the legalised monopoly of the broadcasting system.

The rivalry of the information dominance between King Hassan II and the opposition had intensified during the emergency period of the 1960s. In 1965 the parliament intended to abolish article 77. The Istiqlal and other political parties succeeded in amending the press code by dispensing the regime of the power to suspend or cancel publication. In addition, the opposition succeeded in suppressing two French dailies, la Vigie Marocaine and Le Petit Marocain (Rugh, 1987).

These amendments led to a parliamentary crisis. This in turn sparked the king’s decision to take personal control of the government in June and suspended the parliament and, declaring a state of national emergency on June 7^th, 1965 (Waterbury, 1970: 157).

Repressive measures were utilized against trade unions and the various opposition political parties. The media were particularly affected by censorship. Using his royal derogatives, King Hassan II suspended freedom of expression.

Television has always been the subject of hefty struggles between the opposition and the regime especially during elections. The opposition had been denied access to television during election campaigns and its activities have long been ignored. In 1976, the opposition campaigned for the parliamentary election without access to the audiovisual channels. In 1982, King Hassan II accepted to open broadcasting and allowed the leaders of political parties to contact the electorate directly by means of radio and television. They could benefit from a certain amount of air time to present their political, social and political programmes. The access to the broadcasting system was conditioned with the respect of the “rules of the game” (Ben Ashour, 1992: 90).

The national information system is organised as a state monopoly to maintain and consolidate the authority and legitimacy of the regime. Broadcasting has been virtually a regime monopoly (Rugh, 1987). With the nationalisation of the news agencies the regime could monopolize its information control by selecting and distributing news from overseas wire services. This was furthered by the acquisition of the Maghreb Agency in 1971:³⁷

The regime has been marked by vertical control of communication and information, exemplified by a top-down media system that acted as a conduit carrying the regime ideas to the masses. The information on domestic political events is a part and parcel of the orchestration of politics. The political regime has often sought to impose genuine and full information flow control, by tending to institute more rigid control systems and by attempting to prevent and limit journalists’ access to information sources, as well as newsgathering and publication. Like in many authoritarian regimes, King Hassan’s II information strategy assumed that the mechanism whereby information were handed over and distributed in society essentially determined the working of that society.