A Moroccan draft law that seeks to grant members of the armed forces legal immunity for 'military operations' carried out inside the kingdom has sparked criticism by human rights organizations who say it violates the principle of equal justice under law. The 'basic guarantees for the military' draft law states that 'criminal investigation shall not be applied to members of the Royal Armed Forces who are executing the orders of their commanders…during an operation inside the national territories.'

Morocco’s glittering Mawazine international music festival wrapped up recently with performances by Mariah Carey and Lenny Kravitz, after nine days of showcasing the North African kingdom’s cool factor - even as dissident Moroccan musicians are imprisoned for their anti-establishment lyrics. Just a week before the festival began, Human Rights Watch slammed Morocco for sentencing a rapper to a year in prison for lyrics deemed insulting to police - a common theme in rap music elsewhere in the world.

Tens of thousands of Moroccans have taken to the streets of Casablanca in protests against the government’s failure to tackle unemployment and other social woes. Sunday’s rally, which is believed to be the largest opposition protest since a new government took office, was organised by trade unions. They accuse Abdelilah Benkirane, the prime minister of failing to deliver on the pledges of social justice that brought his party to power in November.

Islamists who say they are being unfairly held in Moroccan prisons are staging hunger strikes to put more pressure on the new government to release them, according to campaigners who are in contact with the prisoners. Letters sent from jail by the inmates and shown to Reuters news agency by their supporters, describe a series of protests by prisoners, followed by punishments by their gaolers that include force feeding and torture.

The sentencing of a rapper on 11 May 2012 to one year in prison for 'insulting the police' shows the gap between the strong free-expression language in Morocco's 2011 constitution and the continuing intolerance for those who criticize state institutions, Human Rights Watch said. The sentence was handed down one week before the opening of the international Mawazine music festival in Rabat, which is held under the patronage of King Mohammed VI. Mouad Belghouat, better known as 'al-Haqed' (the sullen one), has been in pretrial custody since March 29 because of his rap song 'Kilab ed-Dowla' (Dogs of the State), which denounces police corruption, and a YouTube video set to the song.

Women’s rights in Morocco have come under the spotlight recently after a young woman was assaulted in a Rabat market by people she called 'Salafists', or ultra-conservative Islamists. She said she was accosted by the men because of the short dress she was wearing. Other witnesses were reported by the Magharebia news portal as saying the girl was attacked with stones and beaten after the assailants said the dress was 'too revealing'.

The Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Network (EMHRN) has called upon the European Union (EU) to continue to monitor the constitutional reforms that have recently taken place in Morocco. 'The EMHRN is pleased to note that the reforms include the recognition of a multifaceted Moroccan identity and the return of legislative power to the Parliament. While the Network also welcomes the inclusion of the principles of gender parity and the primacy of international law over domestic laws, it wishes to draw attention to the fact that the recognition of these principles remains subject to interpretation,' the organisation said in a statement.

A top Moroccan newspaper editor, convicted and jailed under the penal code for his writings, has been freed after serving a year in prison. 'I denounce my imprisonment and conviction under the penal code, and I hope I am the last journalist to be tried under it,' said Rachid Nini, editor of the country's most popular daily, al-Massae, on Saturday.

The Moroccan Parliament is debating a new bill that would give the prime minister some of the power now held by King Mohammed VI. The proposed law is considered among the most important political reforms brought by the new constitution in Morocco, since the power of appointments was limited to the king under the previous constitution.

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. 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.

Hundreds of protestors rallied in Rabat on 17 March to press for a review of the legal exemption allowing a rapist to marry his victim, following the suicide of a Tangier teenage girl. Amina al-Filali, 16, drank rat poison last week in Larache, after being forced to marry her rapist. Under Moroccan law, rape is punishable by several years in prison if the victim is a minor. Marriage to the victim, however, shields the perpetrator from prosecution.

The Arabic Network for Human Rights Information has condemned the continuation of the Moroccan security services suppression of peaceful demonstrations that began one week ago in the town of Beni Bouayach in the countryside of northern Morocco. The demonstrations continued for the whole week against the marginalization of the people there and for demands of greater social justice.

Moroccan police on Wednesday beat up protesters who were seeking to stage a demonstration in the capital Rabat in solidarity to anti-government protests in the north. A Reuters reporter and photographer saw at least three people injured after dozens of truncheon-wielding policemen chased a few hundred protesters around the streets of downtown Rabat. The demonstrators had been seeking to gather in front of a local government office.

Reporters Without Borders says it is disturbed by Morocco's recent newspaper censorship and attempts to suppress online free expression. Distribution of the leading Spanish daily El País was again banned on 26 February while two netizens have been given jail sentences in the past few weeks for criticizing the king on social networks.

Morocco is prosecuting activists who campaigned peacefully for a boycott of elections held three months ago, Human Rights Watch said. These prosecutions contradict statements by Moroccan officials that authorities arrested no one for advocating a boycott. One of several such trials resumes on 22 February 2012, before the Marrakesh First Degree Court. Charged with distributing fliers in violation of the law, the defendants were arrested in Marrakesh on 16 and 17 November 2011, as they began handing out fliers urging Moroccans to boycott the legislative elections on November 25. Another group of pro-boycott leafletters are on trial already in the city of Benguerir.

Deadly clashes between police and youth in the Northeastern town of Taza suggest that, far from bringing change and stability, Morocco’s new government is simply repeating mistakes of the past, stoking tensions and fuelling a spate of protests against the regime. In an effort to keep its population in check during the Arab Spring, the regime launched a process of reforms last February and brandished what it called ‘the Moroccan exception’, boasting of relative calm during a period of intense regional turmoil.

It did not come as a surprise that the Committee on International Trade of the European Parliament (INTA) voted in favour of the EU-Moroccan Agriculture Agreement on the 26 January (23 votes in favour, 5 votes against, one abstention). By voting overwhelmingly in favour of the agreement, the members of the Committee have clearly rejected the report by the French Green, José Bové. From his point of view, the agreement does not bring any good, neither for Morocco nor for Europe, in the sense that it only serves to reinforce an 'export-based industrial agriculture at the expense of family farms and small-scale farming on both sides of the Mediterranean.'

The Arabic Network for Human Rights Information has condemned the repeatedly adjournment of the case of the Moroccan rapper Moaz Belghawat, a member of the February 20 movement, the continuing of his imprisonment and the authorities’ arbitrary rejection to release him even temporarily. Al-Haqed was arrested on charges of assaulting a member of the 'The Royal Youth Movement' called Mohammed El-Dali, and has been languishing in Casablanca’s Akasha prison for more than 100 days.

Unemployed young Moroccan graduates hope that once new Prime Minister Abdelilah Benkirane assembles his government within the next few days, their situation may finally begin to improve. In its electoral platform, the Justice and Development Party (PJD) vowed to reduce unemployment by 2 per cent and to give 100,000 grants to unemployed young people to support them through training courses. The PJD has proposed to introduce jobseekers' allowance and to raise the minimum wage to 3,000 dirhams.

The feminisation of poverty, limited social mobility for women and discriminatory gender practices tied to culture are limiting factors for women's rights, says this article. With some political reforms in Morocco, can political statements contained in the new constitution be translated to tangible outcomes? And how long will it take to secure the promised women’s rights?