Morocco Expels AFP Bureau Chief Morocco's culture and communications ministry announced the decision in a letter addressed to AFP's CEO, Bertrand Eveno, but gave no reasons for the decision to expel the bureau chief, Claude Juvenal, 56.
The measure is "very serious and highly unusual and can only be interpreted as a flagrant attack against freedom of information," AFP said.
For the last year, Moroccan authorities have directly or indirectly expressed their dissatisfaction with AFP's coverage of domestic events.
They reacted in particular to AFP's coverage of the trial last February of Moroccan army Captain Mustapha Adib, who had said corruption was rife in the country's armed forces.
Adib, 31, was sentenced on appeal to two and a half years in jail.
Moroccan authorities also said they were unhappy with what they said was regular usage by AFP of news reports released by the Moroccan Association of Human Rights.
Juvenal, who was correspondent in Rabat since July 1996, is the third AFP correspondent to have been expelled from Morocco in recent years after Pierre Doublet and Jean-Marie Wetzel, who were expelled under the reign of the late King Hassan II -- PARIS (AFP)
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