In a video posted the evening of last Saturday on Facebook, the organizer of the Moroccan Festival of Laval accuses representatives of the Moroccan embassy in Canada of corruption and launches a petition demanding the dismissal of officials and the placing under supervision of the Cultural Center Moroccan in Montreal. The embassy announces that it will file a complaint.
Fatima Maarouf, who graduated in education administration from the University of Montreal as well as in marketing from HEC Montreal, makes her accusations public in a video that has exceeded 105,000 views since it was uploaded.
She says that in 2017, she launched the first edition of her festival in partnership with the Moroccan Cultural Center of Montreal, which reports to the Moroccan Embassy in Canada.
According to her statements in the about an hour and a half long video, she explains that she put her own money into the project, but the other side did not honor their commitments, among other things.
While trying to recover her money, she would have discovered shell companies and other fictitious ones. Diplomats allegedly asked him for bribes to gain access to these funds, which are given by the ministry in charge of Moroccans living abroad.
She also accused people close to the embassy of trying to sabotage her festival by causing clashes between young festival-goers.
Because it would be independent of the official representatives of its country of origin who would oversee all the activities of the Moroccan community.
All these and other accusations against the Moroccan ambassador to Canada and her collaborators, she said, were submitted to the royal palace in Morocco.
The video cannot be shared on the RCI site because certain passages contravene Radio-Canada’s journalistic standards and practices regarding the language used.
As for the petition, it did not have the same success as the video. By the time we publish, it had reached 40 signatures.
Fatima Maarouf intended it for Moroccans all over the world, including those living in Morocco. She asks “to expel Moroccan Ambassador Soraya Otmani and her diplomatic corps from Canada. Place the Moroccan Cultural Center of Montreal (Dar Al-Maghrib) under the supervision of the Government of Canada and investigate all activities related to Soraya Otmani. ”
The Moroccan Embassy in Canada reacted with a press release. “Following the serious accusations and defamatory comments posted by video on Facebook, on 17/10/2020, by the so-called Fatima Maarouf, against the institutions of Moroccan diplomacy in Canada, the Embassy decided to prosecute the interested in justice. ”, we can read.
Radio-Canada International contacted the Moroccan embassy, but had no feedback.
The reactions on social networks are diverse. Some ask Fatima Maarouf to present the proofs of what she says.
Others defend the ambassador and deplore the personal attacks. Finally, some are calling for a reaction from the embassy.
“Someone should come out to clarify or deny these accusations because it is serious what we hear,” wrote a user on the Facebook page of the Moroccan embassy.
