@morocco_usa Maati Monjib, is a human rights defender who was arrested December 29, 2020. Security agents in civilian clothes took him by force—and without prior notification— from a restaurant in the capital Rabat to the court of First Instance,

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where he was brought before the prosecutor. The latter referred him to the investigating judge, who, after interrogating him without a lawyer, ordered his pretrial detention.
On October 7, 2020, the prosecutor’s office at the Rabat Court of First Instance, opened an investigation against Maati Monjib for alleged embezzlement & money laundering apparently stemming from the receipt of foreign funds to conduct training workshops for citizen journalists.
Maati Monjib told Amnesty International that this harassment and intimidation are due to a recent radio interview where he criticized the General Directorate of Territorial Surveillance for their repression of political opponents as well as his open support of detained
journalists Omar Radi and Suleiman Raissouni. The Central Bureau of Judicial Investigation has summoned Maati Monjib more than seven times for interrogation in Casablanca and in Rabat. Four members of his family, with no relation to political activism, were also summoned,
including his 70-year-old sister who has Alzheimer’s and had to travel to Casablanca, hours away from her home, to be interrogated for more than four hours. Maati Monjib denies all accusations against him. Maati Monjib, is a prisoner of conscience detained solely for peacefully
exercising his rights to freedom of expression and association. Morocco should close the open investigations, drop charges against him, recognize the legitimacy of human rights defenders and end the criminalization of foreign funds to pursue their human rights work.

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human rights and to end the criminalization of foreign funds to pursue their human rights work.

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I'll bite, Mr. Gray. We can even play by your rather finicky rules.

Let's begin with some of the things you have said about Xinjiang, notably absent from your more recent media appearances, but still present in your blog about your 2014 biking trip.


The following is taken from an ongoing list I keep of people who have been to Xinjiang and written/spoken about their experiences. It is separate from the testimony of detainees and their relatives I also keep. Jerry is on this

Jerry, your article for CGTN, as well as your various Medium pieces, belabor themselves to emphasize the smoothness of your time in Xinjiang. Why did you leave out so many details from your log of your 2014 trip? They seem relevant.

For example, would CGTN not let you speak about Shanshan, the town that evidently disturbed you so much?


Why, pray tell, after noting how kind and hospitable Xinjiang police were to you in 2019 for CGTN—and how you were never told where you could or could not go—would you omit these details?

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The benign product is sovereign programmable money, which is historically a niche interest of folks with a relatively clustered set of beliefs about the state, the literary merit of Snow Crash, and the utility of gold to the modern economy.

This product has narrow appeal and, accordingly, is worth about as much as everything else on a 486 sitting in someone's basement is worth.

The other product is investment scams, which have approximately the best product market fit of anything produced by humans. In no age, in no country, in no city, at no level of sophistication do people consistently say "Actually I would prefer not to get money for nothing."

This product needs the exchanges like they need oxygen, because the value of it is directly tied to having payment rails to move real currency into the ecosystem and some jurisdictional and regulatory legerdemain to stay one step ahead of the banhammer.