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Spain Rejects Protest Over Treatment of Moroccan Reporters
MADRID, Nov. 28 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - Spain rejected as groundless a complaint by Morocco over the treatment of four Moroccan journalists, in a sign of increasingly strained relations between the two countries, news agencies reported Wednesday.
Rabat protested to Madrid on Sunday that four Moroccan journalists had been prevented from covering a demonstration in Seville, southern Spain, by protestors demanding independence for the disputed territory of Western Sahara.
Spanish Foreign Minister Josep Pique rejected "both the content and the unfortunate tone of the Moroccan statement," saying the Moroccan government should have "checked the facts."
Spanish police alleged the journalists and seven other Moroccans had tried to disrupt a congress in support of the people of Western Sahara, reported the Chinese News Agency, Xinhua.
The incident sparked a reaction both on a domestic level in Morocco and internationally.
The Moroccan National Journalist Syndicate said the incident goes against all international regulations of press freedom and is unacceptable, reported the Moroccan daily newspaper,
Al Anbaa.
Press freedom campaigners, Reporters Sans Frontiers (RSF - Reporters Without Borders), joined the fray by calling on the Spanish government to explain the incident.
"We are concerned that journalists were prevented from doing their job and obliged to leave Spanish territory simply because of their nationality," RSF Secretary General Robert Menard said in a letter to Pique. "We demand that you justify the treatment they received."
The Spanish-Moroccan spat is the latest in a series of incidents that have soured relations between the two countries. It comes just weeks before Madrid takes over the presidency of the 15-nation European Union.
Morocco is one of the EU's key partners in the Mediterranean.
Saturday's demonstration was attended by over 3,000 supporters of the Polisario Front, which is seeking independence for the former Spanish colony of Western Sahara, under partial or full Moroccan control since 1975.
Morocco said the four journalists were prevented from reporting on a matter that concerned its "territorial integrity". Spanish police alleged the journalists and seven other Moroccans had tried to disrupt a congress in support of the people of Western Sahara.
In addition to the long-festering quarrel over Western Sahara, Madrid and Rabat are at loggerheads over fishing rights, illegal immigration and drug running.
As a gesture of protest over recent spats, the Moroccan government withdrew its ambassador from Madrid on October 28.
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