Protests and general strike grip Morocco’s northern city
AL- HOCEIMA, Morocco: A general strike Thursday gripped the northern Morocco city of alHoceima, rocked by a week of nightly protests demanding the release of the leader of a popular movement.
Thousands of people demonstrated in the port city for the seventh straight night after a strike that saw nearly all of the shops in the city centre shuttered.
“This three- day strike is the result of what is happening here, the marginalisation of a region that is only asking for its daily bread,” a shopkeeper told AFP.
Al-Hoceima, a city of 56,000 inhabitants, is in the neglected Rif region, which has been shaken by social unrest since the death in October of fishmonger Mouhcine Fikri.
The 31-year- old was crushed in a rubbish truck as he protested against the seizure of swordfish caught out of season.
Since then protests have snowballed in al- Hoceima, sparking a wider movement demanding more development and railing against corruption, repression and unemployment.
Nasser Zefzafi, who emerged as the head of the grassroots al-Hirak al-Shaabi, or ‘Popular Movement’, was arrested along with others on Monday after three days on the run. His mother, in remarks to a Moroccan television on Thursday, urged King Mohammed VI to show clemency and release her son.
Late Thursday around 2,000 people protested, shouting slogans such as ‘ freedom for prisoners’, while holding pictures of Zefzafi.
The demonstration ended around midnight, with no reports of violence.
A shopkeeper earlier said the strike would go on “until our prisoners are freed”.
The mainly ethnically 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. — AFP