If any of the information ever came out he would have thought I talked”.īut Mr. He warned me not to tell anyone the details. “In one case there had been a triple-murder, and the guy came in and told me everything about it. At other times, they want to set the record straight so there are no misunderstandings with the police and the underworld.” “Sometimes they don’t want us to publish anything they say, they just have a need to tell their story. “They walk in, it’s like they are at home, they seem to know all our names”. “There have been guys come in here, hardened criminals, who just want to tell us exactly what happened” Mr. Criminals have suddenly burst into the newsroom late in the evening intent on getting the newspaper straight on a particular story. The paper’s status in the criminal world has also produced some unexplained events for Mr. In the 1960s people who either read or sold the paper were threatened with automatic excommunication by priests scandalized by its gory and sensational content. “The underworld reads it to find out what the police think and the police read it to find out what the underworld is doing” Allo Police publisher Andre Parent said during an interview in his office at 1809 Parthenais street.Īllo Police has not always been recommended reading in all quarters. Over the years, as detailed accounts of robbers, murders and beatings have helped make it must reading among police and criminals alike, and one of the province’s most popular weeklies. Notorious for lurid pictures and blood-drenched headlines, the weekly tabloid Allo Police has come to be regarded as Quebec’s unofficial gazette of the criminal world. The Montreal Star, Saturday, July 14, 1979 Scroll to the bottom and there’s a second article from The Gazette: Allo Police publisher Andre Parent in 1979 I would comment, but I believe it speaks for itself. The lawyer for the centre produced in evidence previous front pages of the newspaper that dealt with sensitive issues, arguing that it was damaging Morocco's image abroad.This is a reprint from a 1979 Montreal Star article. The plaintiff's lawyer said that it was in reality a political trial and the court was as a result invited to judge the newspaper's editorial line and opinions and not the object of the complaint. Lawyers for the two journalists said they would appeal.Įditor of Le Journal Hebdomadaire, Ali Amar, said that “at no time had the speeches focused on the alleged object of the libel. Jamai and Iraqi, already fined 50,000 dirhams (5,000 euros) in the criminal court were handed down the latest fines on 16 February by a civil court in Rabat which also ordered them to publish the grounds for the decision in three weeklies, Le Journal Hebdomadaire, Maroc Hebdo and El Ousboue. In the same way anything connected with the Palace or the Western Sahara is taboo.” "In exploiting a foreign-based fake NGO, the government is reminding journalists of the red lines they should not cross. After sentencing Ali Lmrabet to a ten-year ban on practising his profession and imposing fines totally 177,000 euros for libel on the weekly Tel Quel over a period of less than three months, it is the turn of Le Journal to pay the price for this policy of stifling the investigative press”. “The Moroccan authorities never give up and gagging newspapers and their journalists is their latest weapon", said Reporters Without Borders. The complaint that led to the sentence against the newspaper was laid by the European Strategic Intelligence and Security Centre (ESISC), after Le Journal Hebdomadaire published a report questioning the objectivity of a critical report carried out by this “institute” into the separatist Polisario. "With this disproportionate sentence - equal to 138 years of a minimum salary in Morocco - the courts are determined to silence one of the best independent publications in the Maghreb, where the press is too often under the control of the government,” said Reporters Without Borders. Reporters Without Borders voiced shock as managing editor Abubakr Jamai and sub-editor Fahd Iraqi, of Le Journal Hebdomadaire were fined three million and 50,000 dirhams (350,000 euros) for defamation, the highest ever slapped on journalists in Morocco.
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