Thousands of citizens came out on Friday in Fnideq (northern Morocco) to protest against the deterioration of the economic situation claiming “dignity and work”, countered in their fury by the Moroccan authorities who carried out mass arrests.
Several reports claim that residents of the town of Fnideq have gone out in unprecedented demonstrations to protest the living conditions and the suffocating economic crisis in the country.
The situation was exacerbated, according to local reports, by Morocco’s decision to close the passage to the city of Ceuta (Spanish enclave).
Videos relayed via social networks showed the anger of the demonstrators on Friday in the town of Fnideq and the use of Moroccan law enforcement violence to disperse them
Arrest of a number of activists
Moroccan authorities have arrested activists in the ranks of protesters in the town of Fnideq, the number of which remains unknown. The Socialist Union of Popular Forces (USFP) party denounced the arrest of Khalil Jebari, member of the party’s provincial secretariat in Fnideq, as well as the violence against Yassine Yakour, provincial vice-secretary, while they were of passage in front of the place where the sit-in of protest was held.
The USFP demanded, in a statement, the immediate release of Khalil, believing that this incident “is synonymous with a declared intention of the Fnideq authorities to target the party and to damage the image of its militants” .
Criticizing the method of the public authorities in dealing with peaceful demonstrations, the party qualifies them as “shameful behavior”.
“What happened dissipates our hopes in a new Morocco of which we dreamed, but the nostalgia for the years of embers and bullets remains in the imagination and the thought of the authorities”, lamented the USFP who shared its solidarity with the organizers of the protest sit-in and whose demands “are just and legitimate, in particular those guaranteeing access to employment for the benefit of thousands of citizens”.
Human rights activists and activists have called, via various blogs posted on social media, for the release of all detainees arrested following the protests, including the young man called Yassine Razine of the Al Adl wal Ihsane party.
