Fouad Mourtada has been released from prison after serving only 25 days of his sentence.

Mourtada, who was arrested on February 5 for impersonating Prince Moulay Rachid of Morocco, then sentenced on February 22 to three years in prison and $1,000 fine, has received an outpouring of support from bloggers around the world. Earlier today, I wrote a post for Global Voices Online which highlighted many of Mourtada’s supporters.

I am so happy for Mourtada’s family! His sister has kept in close touch with many bloggers, writing in both French and English and sharing news about Fouad. Although what Fouad did was stupid, he did not deserve his punishment…and now justice has, in a way, been served.

This week, I will be traveling to Miami with some other Global Voices folk to attend the ifocus WeMedia conference (see interview here).  I will also be launching my own website/blog (finally!) - which is not to say this one will become defunct…I plan to leave it up and eventually import all of the old posts to my new blog - but from now on, I will be blogging at jilliancyork.com - so please, change your links!

Today, Tuesday, February 19, is the fourteenth day of Fouad Mourtada’s imprisonment. He committed the error, but not the crime, of creating a Facebook account in the name of Prince Moulay Rachid. This account contained no insults against the Prince nor was it the instrument of any swindling attempts. His name was immediately given wide publicity by the authorities, in breach of the presumption of innocence he’s supposed to enjoy, and he alleges having been beaten and mishandled during his arrest. He initially had trouble finding a lawyer willing to defend him. The trial, due to begin on February 15, has been postponed to February 22, while his habeas corpus application has been rejected.

For this reason, The Morocco Report will be on strike on Tuesday, 19 February as a gesture of solidarity with Fouad Mourtada and the other prisoners of opinion currently jailed in Morocco.

Exciting news this morning - the Agence France-Presse (AFP) published an article on blogging in Morocco and as it turns out, Moroccan bloggers have far more freedom than their North African and Middle Eastern counterparts (not to mention far more blogs than the former).

As a Morocco-related blogger for the past two-odd years, I would have to agree with the article - Moroccan bloggers really do have significant freedom in what they choose to write about, as evidenced by some of the posts seen at maroc-blogs.com.

Needless to say, congratulations blogoma!  May you continue to generate interesting, exciting, and thought-provoking posts, and may the freedom to express your ideas continue.

Rising Voices, the outreach arm of Global Voices Online, is now accepting grant proposals for the second round of microgrant funding up to $5,000 for citizen media outreach projects. If you have a project that you think qualifies, go check it out!

*Please post this in your own blog if you feel so inclined.

Ghasbouba and I just wrapped up an interview for Global Voices that is currently featured on the front page - check it out!

I can’t believe I didn’t post about this sooner - I suppose it’s worth mentioning that now that I live in Boston and work full-time (as opposed to my previous life as a 20-hour-per-week English teacher), I don’t have the time for blogging that I used to.  I also don’t have the internet like I used to.

Anyhow, as I wrote over at Global Voices last week, the most newsworthy story involving Morocco in my head is that of Madeleine McCann’s apparent lookalike, young Riffain Berber girl Bouchra Benaissa.  Spanish tourists traveling through the Rif (most likely on a hashish buying mission) photographed a young blonde girl on the back of an older, traditionally dressed woman and submitted it to authorities on suspicion that the girl looked a little too much like Madeleine McCann, the missing British child.

Thus, the Benaissa family was intruded upon because the Spanish were too stupid to recognize that Moroccans (their next door neighbors, one might add) come in all colors.  Honestly - that’s how I see it.  I’ve received some comments arguing that the Spanish tourists did the right thing, as there have been previous “sightings” of Madeleine in Morocco and that Bouchra does bear a resemblance to her, but I have to disagree.  A blonde girl upon the shoulders of a traditionally dressed woman does not a Briton make.

In other words, this is racial profiling at its worst (or best, depending on how you look at it).  Morocco is full of diversity - Just in my job as a teacher, I taught at least five redheads (who could’ve been plucked from Ireland), two blondes with blue eyes, several green-eyed folks with olive skin, plenty who appeared African, and a mix of all of the above.

Or as blogger Naim put it best: “The main purpose of my post is to show just one fact. The nearest neighbours of Morocco have a total ignorance about the ethnic reality of Morocco.”

There are many wonderful posts around the world today for International Blog Day.  You should definitely check Maroc Blogs for posts from other Maroc bloggers, and Global Voices Online for a worldwide picture of what’s going on today.

Following the guidelines of this “holiday,” bloggers are supposed to post about 5 international blogs they enjoy reading…so without further ado, here are 5 blogs from around the world that you shouldn’t miss:

1. Probably my favorite blogger, the cat formerly known as Cat in Rabat, has moved over to La Gatita Gringa and still cracks me up.  Hers are probably the only posts I consistently read all the way through.

2. Maysaloon, from the UK but originally Syrian, is another blog I truly enjoy.  I discovered it while temporarily covering Palestine for Global Voices and still go back now and again.

3. Silly Bahraini Girl, the blog of my lovely GV editor Amira, is an always enjoyable read as well (and that’s all I can say without sounding like a suck-up!)

4. Wanderlust Sha is a beautiful blog with beautiful pictures which I discovered - you know what, I don’t remember but I don’t care - it’s gorgeous.

5. Mykal Cave is a close friend of mine whose blog is about anything, everything and nothing, but nearly always makes me laugh.  Plus, he’s doing my new site, so I should give him some publicity :)  Love you Myke!

There you go - whose blog will you recommend today?

Because I am not there, I’m not following the elections as closely as I ought to, however Ibn Kafka has written an excellent, detailed three-part piece over at ‘Aqoul which I highly recommend to anyone interested:

Part I
Part II
Part III

…that Mahmood Ahmadinejad has a blog?  And that every post is faithfully translated into English (and French)?

It’s so strange - I want to like the guy for some reason.  Before his election, I really did like him.  I don’t disagree with his feelings on the US necessarily, but denying the Holocaust took it a little too far (I’m sorry - you can hate Israel and that’s fine by me, but the Holocaust happened, and denying it is simply pardoning the Germans).

What impressed me the most is all of the kind comments from Americans though.  I admit that, despite being an American, being raised by enlightened parents, and hanging with educated circles, I still view many of my fellow countrymen and women as hopelessly ignorant.  I tell people I’m from the Northeast as if it were a different country.  And yet, look at ‘em posting on the blog of the Iranian president!  If only my own president had the desire to communicate with and listen to his people.

Now, can anyone enlighten me - how well does Ahmadinejad speak (or read, rather) English?  Do you think he reads his blog comments?