Morocco: Drop Charges Against Detained Rapper April 18, 2012 1:45AM EDT Repressive Speech Laws Enforced Despite Rights-Friendly Constitution Expand © 2012 Human Rights Watch (Casablanca) – Moroccan authorities should drop charges and release a rapper who has spent three weeks in pretrial detention on charges that he insulted the police in his songs and a video set to his music, Human Rights Watch said today. Police arrested Mouad Belghouat, known as “al-Haqed” (the sullen one), on March 29, 2012, because of a YouTube video with a photo of a policeman whose head has been replaced with a donkey’s. The lyrics denounce police corruption. On April 16, the Casablanca Court of First Instance, located in Aïn Sbaâ, postponed the start of Belghouat’s trial for the second time. The judge, as he had done previously, rejected defense motions to grant the defendant pretrial release.