CAIRO: Moroccan rapper Mouad Belghouat, convicted on May 11 and jailed for “showing contempt” to the country's civil servants over his song “Dogs of the State,” has announced he would enter a hunger strike to protest his jailing. The rapper, known as el-Haqed, “the enraged”, was protesting the conditions he finds himself in, his brother told The Associated Press on Monday. Aderrahim Belghouat said that his brother “is forbidden from using the phone in prison, is harassed by the other prisoners and the guards are constantly searching his stuff – often very late at night.” The strike “is a warning for the prison administration,” he said, adding that it would last for 48 hours. In May, after el-Haqed was convicted, Moroccan activists lashed out in condemnation of the government and the court. He was kept in prison and his defense team wasn't present. Defense lawyers said they would appeal the verdict. “It is simply not imaginable that after the reforms the King promised us that they would then turn around and sentence someone for something they had said," Tarek Boughani, a local activist and fan of El-Haqed, told Bikyamasr.com a day after the verdict. The defense team had withdrawn from the case ahead of the ruling after an altercation between a group supporting the rapper and a lawyer for the Moroccan police, but lawyers said they had expected to be able to make closing arguments on behalf of their client. But they were too late and the case was already adjourned, with the verdict in tact. The rapper writes songs about corruption and social injustice and is involved in a pro-democracy movement in the Moroccan kingdom. He was arrested March 29 and charged with insulting state employees and official institutions, accused by police of posting a song on the Internet with photos insulting to police, with one showing an officer with a donkey's head. The defense claims the photos were posted by an anonymous person and the case is a political attack on a well-known activist. “This is scandalous. They think they will silence our voices with this type of sentence," said Fatna Bik, a militant and member of the Moroccan Association for Human Rights, in comments published by the Associated Press. It was the second conviction for Belghouat who comes from a sprawling Casablanca slum. He was jailed for four months last year for getting into a fight with a regime supporter in the gritty, low-income suburb of Casablanca where he now lives. His supporters say the charges were trumped up. He was released Jan. 12 in a case that mobilized the country's activist community. The song he was charged for in his second tangle with authorities is called “Dogs of the State" and is addressed to the police. “You are paid to protect the citizens, not to steal their money," goes the song. “Did your commander order you to take money from the poor?" The song asks the police to arrest the wealthy businessmen who he says have divided the country up for themselves.
