Independent paper's photographer barred from covering royal wedding

  Reporters Without Borders called on the Moroccan government today to explain why a photographer from the weekly paper Journal hebdomadaire, Karim Sellmaoui, was barred from covering the festivities surrounding the wedding of King Mohammed VI on 12 July. "This was an arbitrary measure taken by one of your officials against a staff member of an independent newspaper," said the organisation's secretary-general Robert Ménard in a letter to communications minister Mohammed Achaâri.                      Sellmaoui was stopped from entering Mechouar Square, opposite the royal palace in Rabat, where the public celebration of the king's marriage to Lalla Salma Bennani was being held. A ministry official told him, without explanation, to get out of the car that was taking him, the special correspondent of the French magazine Paris Match and the technical team of the Qatari TV station Al-Jazeera to the festivities. The publishers of Journal hebdomadaire, Média Trust, said on 15 July that Sellmaoui was duly accredited by the ministry and had "not behaved ostentatiously or provocatively or criticised working conditions" for the event. More than 300 local and foreign journalists and photographers covered the marriage.