A Moroccan paper close to the government denounced the BBC's Arabic-language radio service Monday for a decision to drop its long-time correspondent in Morocco, Mohammed Benaissa El Fassi.
Al Ittihad Al Ichtiraki, the newspaper of the Socialist Union of Popular Forces (USFP), said in an editorial: "As journalists, we express our solidarity with colleague El Fassi and the National Union of the Moroccan Press will no doubt take up its responsibility of defending his rights."
In a statement to the Moroccan press, El Fassi said that the BBC's decision arose from a professional dispute, which has pitted him for some months against a British correspondent of the BBC who was recently accredited to Rabat.
He added that he had also had an altercation with an editor-in-chief of the British Broadcasting Corporation in London.
A correspondent of the British public service network in Morocco for 2O years, El Fassi is also a journalist at Moroccan Radio and Television (RTM) and works for the weekly Al Hadath magazine -- RABAT (AFP)
© 2000 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
