When they did, though, the truck’s mechanical compactor became engaged. The other men managed to jump out of the truck, but Fikri was stuck. The compactor crushed his body, killing him.

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It is unclear why the compactor was turned on, though one witness told a local media outlet that police asked for the truck to be switched on as a means of scaring away the crowd that had formed around it.

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Quickly, images of Fikri’s arm sticking out of the truck began circulating online.

In response, Moroccans staged protests across the country on Sunday while thousands attended Fikri’s funeral. Though police ruled Fikri’s death an accident, many protesters disagreed.

“To me what happened in Al Hoceima should not happen in 2016,” Rachid Hilali, one of the protesters, told the Associated Press. “This way of killing people by the police, our grandfathers are used to it, but we should not be used to this. We cannot accept this kind of treatment anymore.”

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Hundreds gathered in Rabat, the nation’s capital, where they chanted, “Mouhcine was murdered, Makhzen is to blame.” “Makhzen” is a word used in Morocco to refer to the “state” or the “government.”

As Reuters noted, protests such as these are rare in Morocco, where the king — currently King Mohammed VI — still retains near-total power.

“I have never seen such a crowd in the last few years, since 2011 at least,” Houssin Lmrabet, an activist from the town of Imzouren, told Reuters. “Everyone feels crushed by that garbage truck here.”

King Mohammed, who is currently traveling through Africa, ordered the country’s interior minister, Mohamed Hassad, to visit Fikri’s grieving family and to offer royal condolences. He also ordered the Interior Ministry to conduct “a careful and thorough investigation” and to arrest anyone who may have broken the law, according to the local and state-run outlet Maghreb Arabe Presse.

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“No one had the right to treat him like this,” Hassad told the AFP news agency.”We cannot accept officials acting in haste, anger or in conditions that do not respect people’s rights.”

The story may sound familiar, as it closely mirrors the events leading up to the Arab Spring. In December 2010, a Tunisian fruit vendor named Mohamed Bouazizi set himself on fire after two police officers attempted to take his fruit from him.

The act sparked a wave of violent and nonviolent uprisings throughout the Arab world.

At least one protester, though, thought that news outlets are overemphasizing this similarity. Mounir Agueznay, a human-rights activist, told the New York Times that protesters simply want justice, not to incite an uprising. He added that the government doesn’t seem fazed by the protests.

“Authorities are nowhere to be seen,” Agueznay said. “They are letting the protesters do whatever they want.”