While the freedom of the print media in Morocco has long been in doubt, according to media watchdog groups, it now appears that the online media is threatened as well. In September, Ali Anouzla, one of the country's leading independent journalists in online media was jailed in for 55 days and he now faces a sentence of up to 20 years in prison. He is charged with aiding terrorists under the 2003 counterterrorism law after he reported about a propaganda video “Morocco: the kingdom of corruption and despotism " attacking the king that al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb had posted online. Before Anouzla, several online journalists have been put in prison in order to silence them. They are especially vulnerable to imprisonment because the most of them are independent, so they rarely benefit from the institutional support.
