Concerns about freedom of expression
Protestors in the Moroccan city of Al-Hoceima said they would go ahead with a planned “million man march” despite a government ban on the protest.
The North African country’s Rif region, where residents have long complained of neglect and marginalization, has seen repeated protests and outbreaks of unrest this year. Significant numbers of police could be seen around Al-Hoceima, and they filled the city’s squares. Activists on Facebook said police prevented demonstrators from entering the city.
The protest movement known as Al-Hirak al-Shaabi or just “Hirak” dates back to the 2016 death of a fishmonger named Mouhcine Fikri. The incident is similar to the death of fruit seller Mohamed Bouazizi in Tunisia, which triggered the movement that became the Arab Spring in 2011.
“We have concerns about freedom of expression in Morocco,” Eric Goldstein of Human Rights Watch told The Media Line. “There have been crackdowns on demonstrations, and it is illegal to criticize the King or Islam. We are also concerned about the arrests of about 200 protestors in the past few weeks.”
He said that the authorities’ decision to ban the march did not mean that police officers would act to stop it, but were hoping to bring the numbers down. Protestors said they would go ahead and hope it would be the largest demonstration since a solidarity march in the capital city of Rabat last month drew more than 100,000 protestors.
The Hirak movement has gained strength since the popular leader Nasser Zefzafi, an unemployed activist was arrested after disrupting a Friday sermon.
“Are these mosques of God or mosques of the State,” he asked during a Friday prayer. He was speaking about state-sponsored sermons that blamed young protestors for causing division in Morocco, a monarchy that was largely untouched by the Arab spring riots.
Protests increased during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan and security forces began to crack down on demonstrators, who were calling for the release of demonstrators. They also say that infrastructure including schools and hospitals are lacking in the Rif valley.
In a separate incident, human rights groups also protested against heavy sentences for 24 people charged in connection with the deaths of 11 policemen who were killed during clashes in Western Sahara in 2010. The clashes began when security forces dismantled a large protest encampment in Western Sahara.
The court this week imposed heavy sentences, including sentencing eight of them to life in prison, and eight others to at least 25 years in prison. Human Rights Watch said they believe that the confessions were obtained under torture.
“The prior military court trial of these defendants in 2013 convicted all of them almost entirely on the basis of their contested confessions, after failing to investigate their claims of torture, and after failing to link any of the defendants individually to specific killings,” Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East and North Africa director at Human Rights Watch told The Media Line. “While we welcome that the second trial took place before a civilian, rather than a military court, no verdict is just if it relies on incriminating statements obtained through torture or ill-treatment. We await the publication of the court’s reasoning in this case to assess whether the verdict is based on clean and convincing evidence.”