Three months after his arrest, Moroccan YouTuber Chafik Omerani aka «3robi F Merican» leaves prison

Moroccan YouTuber Chafik Omerani, aka «3robi F Merican», left the Oukacha prison in Casablanca this morning, after serving his three-month sentence. In front of the local prison, he said that he lost 33 kilos, «after 89 days of hunger strike, including 10 days without water».

Chafik Omerani added that he spent the last three days at the Ibn Rochd hospital in Casablanca, following a heart attack that required a cardiac catheterization. The Moroccan-American YouTuber also expressed his solidarity with historian Maati Monjib and journalists Omar Radi and Soulaiman Raissouni, saying prison would not deter him from what he was doing before. Indeed, for several years he has been publishing videos critical of Morocco. 

For the record, the Casablanca court of first instance sentenced Chafik Omerani, in March, to three months in prison and a fine of 40,000 dirhams. «3robi F Merican» was arrested in February at the Rabat-Salé airport by Moroccan police. He traveled to the kingdom from the United States where he lives, after a stopover in Brussels.

In a statement, the king's prosecutor at the Casablanca criminal court of first instance explained that the YouTuber was «wanted on suspicion of acts of a criminal nature«, accusing him of having «published a series of videos containing insulting and defamatory expressions against constitutional institutions, organized establishments and public officials».