Thousands of protesters
in the North African kingdom of Morocco have staged night rallies to
demand the release of a leader of an uprising in the restive northern
Rif region.
The rallies were held on Tuesday to demand
the freedom of Nasser Zefzafi, the leader of the grassroots Popular
Movement in the region who was arrested on Monday.
The region has
seen unrest since the October 2016 death of a 31-year-old fish vendor,
Mouhcine Fikri, who was crushed to death in a rubbish truck in the
fishing port of al-Hoceima as he protested against the seizure of
swordfish caught out of season.
The protesters staged rallies near
the center of al-Hoceima for a fifth straight night at around 10 p.m.
local time after breaking their fasts during the holy Islamic month of
Ramadan.
Similar protest events were also staged in the
neighboring town of Imzouren, amid a heavy presence of police forces, as
indicated by images published on social media networks.
Protesters
face police during a demonstration against corruption, repression, and
unemployment in the northern city of al-Hoceima, May 30, 2017. (Photo by
AFP)
Smaller demonstrations were also
held in the capital, Rabat, as well as in the commercial hub Casablanca
but were quickly suppressed by police forces.
Zefzafi’s arrest was
ordered after he allegedly interrupted a preacher at a local mosque on
Friday and urged people to continue protest rallies. Government
prosecutors alleged that he had “obstructed, in the company of a group
of individuals, freedom of worship” at the mosque in al-Hoceima.
He was taken into custody on Monday “along with other individuals” and transferred to Casablanca, prosecutors said.
The
largely ethnic Berber Rif region has long had a tense relationship with
Morocco’s central authorities and was at the heart of Arab
Spring-inspired protests in 2011. Those protests rallies subsided after a
series of political reforms, including constitutional changes that
limited some of the wide-ranging powers of Morocco’s King Mohamed VI.
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