"Morocco is a
state of law," said Mohamed Aujjar, Morocco's ambassador to the United
Nations in Geneva, insisting the journalist had "every right to contest
the administrative decision" not to provide him with a certificate
needed to renew his passport.
"But you don't get your papers by staging a hunger strike," he told AFP.
Ali
Lmrabet has been on hunger strike outside the UN's Geneva offices since
June 24, when his Moroccan passport expired after months of vain
attempts to renew it.
The journalist, who moved indoors Sunday
amid a searing heatwave, told AFP he had lost seven kilos (15.4 pounds)
since he stopped eating.Lmrabet maintains Morocco's refusal to renew his passport aims to block him from moving ahead with his plans to relaunch two satirical publications, after a 10-year-ban on him practising journalism was lifted in April.
He says he had requested the residence certificate needed to renew his passport on April 20, and had received the document only to see it withdrawn the next day.
The authorities
said Lmrabet, whose wife and children live in Spain, did not live at his
father's address in the northern city of Tetouan as claimed.
Aujjar said that if Lmrabet disagreed with the administrative decision he could challenge it, but not in Geneva
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