Morocco to probe attack on TV crew

A Moroccan policeman walks past artists working on a mural thanking essential workers amid the COVID-19 pandemic, in the city of Sale north of the capital, on April 26, 2020. (AFP)

• A television crew on assignment at a local market in Tiflet, near Rabat, had come under physical and verbal attack by police
• It was interior ministry agents who had tried to prevent the journalists from working

RABAT: Moroccan authorities said Friday they would investigate a case of an attack on television journalists filming a report, as police denied any involvement in the incident.
Media watchdog Reporters Without Borders (RSF) said Thursday that a television crew on assignment at a local market in Tiflet, near Rabat, had come under physical and verbal attack by police.
The police force, in a statement, condemned the report as damaging to its reputation and said its members had played no role.
It was interior ministry agents who had tried to prevent the journalists from working.
The ministry, for its part, said it had “opened an internal inquiry to determine the circumstances of the incident and establish the truth.”
Morocco ranks 133rd out of 180 on the RSF’s World Press Freedom Index.