Human Rights Watch (HRW) just reported on the sentencing of outspoken Moroccan human rights activist, Chekib el-Khayari, to three years in prison after publically implicating state officials in drug trafficking common in the North of Morocco. El-Khayari, who leads the Association for Human Rights in the Rif, was charged with “gravely insulting state institutions” and sentenced with a $90,000 fine. According to Sarah Whitson, the MENA director at HRW, “Morocco is opening up in some respects, but its treatment of Chekib el-Khayari shows that when someone speaks out in ways that truly bother officials, they come down on him like a ton of bricks.”