This year’s second and third place winners of the Boston Marathon were both Moroccan!  Although Kenyan Robert Kipkoech Cheruiyot won first place, Abderrahime Bouramdane of Fez came in second, with Khalid El Boumlili finishing in third place.  Both men are Olympic hopefuls.

Unfortunately,  no Moroccan women placed in the top group this year.

A Reuters report claims that Moroccan tourism has dropped in the past few weeks since the security level was raised to maximum.  It also states:

More recently, roadblocks have been set up at the entrance to big towns and police in blue riot vans watch over Marrakesh’s biggest hotels.

What was humorous about the article, however, was the opening in which a man called Ibrahim claims that no tourists have approached him for a camel tour of Marrakech.  Hmm, could that be because a camel tour of Marrakech is totally lame?  If I wanted to ride a camel, I’d go to somewhere where they somewhat naturally occur, rather than Morocco’s third largest city, thankyouverymuch.

As I’m sure you know by now, Morocco raised its security level to maximum a couple of weeks ago.  I wasn’t nervous at all really, given that Morocco’s last suicide bombers were too stupid to actually cause any damage (to anyone but themselves, that is).  I was even less nervous today, after a drive from Meknes to Fez, during which we were stopped at two checkpoints before being allowed to exit the highway.  The checkpoints even had those spikey things laid out which are intended to puncture tires if driven over (I will edit this post if someone please tells me what those are called).

The police in Meknes are also currently everywhere.  Hamza was even stopped a couple of nights ago for a traffic violation which I’m pretty sure he commits on a daily basis.

CPJ (Committee to Protect Journalists) has released a special report entitled The Moroccan Facade, which outlines media law, court cases and harassment received by journalists in Morocco.

Despite boasting a lively print press, CPJ found, Morocco has come to rely on a stealthy system of judicial and financial controls to keep enterprising journalists in check. The record shows that press freedom conditions are far from the glowing version furnished by officials and many journalists.

The article also mentions the low literacy rate and the influence of the French-language media and press as compared to Arabic.

My favorite part of the article, however, is the exultory praise given to Aboubakr Jamai, perhaps Morocco’s best journalist and editor, who recently moved to the United States with his family after his magazine, Le Journal, was slapped with an unpayable fine.

The article even mentions the influence Kuwaitis had on the Nichane ban, something which - at the time- few people believed.

It’s quite long, but worth reading every word.