Moroccan authorities on Sunday denied as "false" and "absurd" news reports by Al Jazeera satellite TV channel that between six to ten people died following the intervention of police forces at Sidi Ifni port, southern Morocco.
 
   Moroccan authorities are surprised by the propagation of these false news, especially that Al Jazeera office in Rabat was informed that there were no casualties on both sides during the intervention of the police forces to disperse the demonstrators who were blocking access to the port.

   The Public prosecutor has ordered a probe to determine the circumstances in which this false information has been disseminated, and the director of Al-Jazeera office in Rabat, Hassan Errachidi, was questioned by the judiciary police.

   Relations between Morocco and the Qatar-based TV have been strained following the government's decision, last month, to suspend the broadcasting of Al Jazeera's Maghreb news program from Rabat, for "technical and legal reasons."

    "There is no need to give this decision a political dimension," Communication Minister and government spokesman Khalid Naciri had said during a press briefing on May 7, making it clear that the channel "was welcomed by the kingdom as part of Morocco's remarkable democratic openness."

    Recalling that the channel had operated, since the launch of its news bulletin from its Rabat office in November 2006, under temporary licenses, the minister noted that "the legal situation of Al Jazeera in Morocco has not been regularized so far."

    Two days earlier, Al-Jazeera's Rabat bureau received a fax from the National Agency for Telecom Regulation (ANRT) informing it that the frequency it used for broadcasting the Maghreb news program was being withdrawn because of "technical and legal problems."