A NEW revolutionary uprising has erupted in Morocco, with mass street protests spreading around the whole country.
The uprising began in ‘The Rif,’ a mainly mountainous region of northern Morocco.
Monday saw outraged students in the northern city of Al-Hoceima boycotting school and taking to the streets. Protesters shouted: ‘Criminals, assassins, terrorists!’ ‘The people of the Rif won’t be humiliated!’
The uprising has been sparked by the gruesome death of a fishmonger, who was crushed to death inside a garbage truck in the city. Mouhcine Fikri, 31, was crushed to death in the truck last Friday, as he tried to protest against police seizing and destroying his wares.
A human rights activist said that authorities forced the fishmonger to destroy several boxes of swordfish. ‘The goods were worth a lot of money,’ said Fassal Aoussar from the local branch of the Moroccan Association of Human Rights (AMDH). He added: ‘The salesman threw himself in after his fish and was crushed by the machine. The whole of the Rif is in shock and boiling over.’
The incident has startling parallels with the case of Tarek el-Tayeb Mohamed Bouazizi.
He was a Tunisian street vendor who set himself on fire on 17 December 2010, in response to the confiscation of his wares and the harassment and humiliation that was inflicted on him by a municipal official and her aides.
This single act became a catalyst for the Tunisian Revolution which overthrew their ruler Ben Ali and the wider Arab Spring, inciting demonstrations and riots throughout the North Africa and the Middle East. This lead to the overthrow of Egyptian ruler Mubarak.
At the time demonstrations erupted on the streets of Morocco but were quickly put down by the brutal state forces. Now Moroccans have lost all confidence in their rulers the revolutionary uprising has reignited. An image of Mouhcine Fikri inert body – head and arm sticking out from under the lorry’s crushing mechanism, went viral on social media, protests erupted in more than 20 cities across Morocco, including in the capital Rabat.
The Rif has been inhabited by Berbers since prehistoric times. Over the weekend Mouhcine Fikri’s funeral procession was led by a dozen drivers in their cars including taxis and marchers waving the Berber flag and shouting: ‘We are all Mouhcine!’ The ambulance headed to the area of Imzouren some 20 kilometres southeast of the city, where Fikri was buried in the late afternoon.
Samir Bennis, editor in chief of Morocco World News said: ‘The government does not do enough to tackle the abuse of power. While we have had a constitution since 2011, a large segment of Morocco’s security apparatus is still dealing with the Moroccan people with the same mentality as in 1980s and 1990s. So with these protests, Moroccans are trying to communicate to the government that they have had enough of this impunity and of this abuse of power.’
North African political analyst Riccardo Fabiani said: ‘The idea here is that the authorities, especially the security forces often use a degree of contempt and disregard towards citizens. Treating them as if they were not real citizens but as if they were subjects. This is a problem that puts a distance between the citizens and the state.’
The Moroccan Association of Human Rights (AMDH) condemned the state for ‘having trampled on the dignity of citizens since the ferocious repression of the February 20 movement and keeping the region in a state of tension.’
Rifflan, an activist living in Morroco, gave his own personal take on the incident, in a report entitled: ‘It could happen to any of us.’ With the sub-heading ‘Why the revolution in Morocco has started’ Rifflan writes: ‘Moroccans have been waiting for an uprising to start, and fear has always been an obstacle, but after Mouhcine Fakri’s death, that fear is gone.
‘Our story starts with a 31-year-old Riffian man named Mouhcine Fikri who lives in the city of Hoceima in northern Morocco. Like the majority of Moroccans, Mouhcine was extremely poor. He was Riffian, meaning that he was both an Amazigh and also from the Rif, a mountainous region in the north where many Amazigh live – and one of many non-Arabised zones in Morocco that the government has completely marginalised to the point that some cities still don’t have electricity, water or hospitals.
‘On Friday, Mohsin, who was a fisherman, was caught by the makhzen (the Moroccan police) trying to sell swordfish that he obtained illegally. They confiscated the fish. Like the government, and every other institution in Morocco, the police is a corrupt organisation. Motivated by the low salaries they get from the government or just simply by the greed in their hearts, they usually make citizens pay an amount of extra money in order for them to act like they didn’t see anything out of place.
‘As we said, Mouhcine was a humble man who barely had any money for himself or the rest of his family. His job as a fisherman was his only source of money to stay alive and survive in a country where it is almost impossible to find a job. When police asked for money in exchange for letting him sell the fish, obviously, he couldn’t afford to pay.
‘The police then proceeded to throw all the fish he was going to sell into a nearby garbage truck. Mohsin, who along with four friends watched all of his work tossed into the trash, attempted to jump into the truck and save some of the fish so he could sell it and at least get some money for him and his family members who all depended on him.
‘The police, surprised by his actions, reacted in a really cruel way: they went to the back of the garbage truck, and saw the four men in there, looking for the fish. They all jumped out in time – except for Mohsin, who was still there when, as a video released shows, the police told the garbage truck driver to press the buttons and crush the trash while saying “t’han mo” (“crush him” in Darija, a language derived from Moroccan Arabic).
‘It was too late to stop the machine. Even as they screamed for it to stop, Mohsin Fikri was already dead. Events like this happen all the time in Morocco, but they don’t get recorded like this one. And even if they do get recorded, the manipulated media in Morocco won’t show them, and that’s one of the reasons why so many Moroccans are clueless about some topics in our country: the government won’t show anything that goes against them or King Mohamed Vl.
‘No one is safe, and that’s one of the reasons why every city in Morocco is now protesting in front of government buildings, demanding and asking for change. This Amazigh man’s death has opened the eyes of an entire nation and has made them say “enough”.
‘ “If it happened to him, it could happen to any of us, this must stop, this is not fair,” one of the protesters could be heard saying in the live streaming video of the march. People have been waiting for a revolution in Morocco to start, but the oppression and the fear has always been an obstacle. But this time is different. This has never happened in Morocco before.’
