MM

It’s the result of the protest movement kicked off nearly two years ago by the death of a young fishmonger crushed to death in a garbage truck. There was a very strong movement in the Rif, which is a region that has problems with centralized power, has a strong Berber identity, and is very proud of its historical memory.

It was a very strong movement. In fact, it’s the strongest peaceful local movement against the regime that independent Morocco has known. And there was no violence — the majority of participants were truly pacifists. The protestors even had special guards to ensure that police and official buildings weren’t affected, even if there were provocations from the police.

In any case, in May 2017, about eight months after the protests began, the regime decided to put an end to the movement, because it was inspiring other regions that [might want] to start a struggle for their interests and for social and economic rights. Especially because the regime started to promise reforms and to punish corrupt local officials [in the Rif]. The regime was scared this would spread. Even more so since there were other movements — in Zagora, in the South, and in other regions in peripheral Morocco. So, there were hundreds of arrests.

The first group is fifty-three leaders who were taken to Casablanca and interrogated in Casablanca — even though it’s prohibited by law. [Suspects] must be interrogated in their town of residence.

These young people — in general, they’re between twenty and forty years old — they were judged very severely. The majority were sentenced to harsh sentences, from five to twenty years. Their leaders were defamed for months and months. In particular, Nasser Zefzafi, who was attacked by media linked to state intelligence services. He was sentenced to twenty years in prison, and he’s decided not to appeal because he knows it’s political. Also, this way, he can show to the public that he’s able to resist and that he’s ready to spend twenty years in prison for his ideas.

It’s clear the regime wants to scare the local population and to discourage other movements that were triggered in other regions. Like in Jerada, in the east of Morocco. It’s a city that has about the same population as Al-Hoceima. And it’s a city that suffers a lot of from deindustrialization, because it’s in a region once notable for coal mining. The coal mines closed at the end of the 1990s, and there’s much less work today.

In any case, the regime wants to scare people by unjustly sentencing people, in an entirely political fashion. The majority of activists were sentenced to more than five years in prison. A good amount of them were also tortured.