{"id":39734,"date":"2026-07-16T08:16:41","date_gmt":"2026-07-16T06:16:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/?post_type=news&#038;p=39734"},"modified":"2026-07-16T08:16:41","modified_gmt":"2026-07-16T06:16:41","slug":"moroccan-rapper-el-mahdi-lyoubi-held-in-pre-trial-detention","status":"publish","type":"news","link":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/news\/moroccan-rapper-el-mahdi-lyoubi-held-in-pre-trial-detention\/","title":{"rendered":"&#8216;Moroccan rapper El Mahdi Lyoubi held in pre-trial detention&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Casablanca&#8217;s public prosecutor ordered rapper and documentary \u200bfilmmaker El Mahdi Lyoubi, \u200can outspoken critic of Morocco&#8217;s political system, into pre-trial detention \u200bon Wednesday, a rights \u200bgroup and a judicial source \u2060said.<\/p>\n<p>Known professionally as Mehdi \u200bBlack Wind, Lyoubi was placed \u200bin police custody on Monday, after he was prevented from boarding \u200ba flight to Marseille, \u200bwhere he lives.<\/p>\n<p>The prosecutor&#8217;s office has \u200cnot \u2060disclosed the charges against him.<\/p>\n<p>The Moroccan Association for Human Rights called for his \u200bimmediate release, \u200bsaying \u2060the case raised concerns about freedom of \u200bexpression.<\/p>\n<p>More than 500 artists, \u200bmusicians \u2060and film professionals also signed a petition published by \u2060French \u200bmedia platform Mediapart \u200bdemanding his release.<\/p>\n<p>&#8211;Reuters&#8211;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":16400,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false},"news-type":[26],"class_list":["post-39734","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","news-type-general_news","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"The Moroccan Association for Human Rights called for his \u200bimmediate release, \u200bsaying \u2060the case raised concerns about freedom of \u200bexpression.","published_date":"","news_description":"The Moroccan Association for Human Rights called for his \u200bimmediate release, \u200bsaying \u2060the case raised concerns about freedom of \u200bexpression.","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/39734","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/39734\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":39735,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/39734\/revisions\/39735"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16400"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39734"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=39734"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}