Press Release
Morocco: Al Hoceima’s Lesson in the Struggle
(Translated)

The protests of Moroccans, especially in Al Hoceima and surrounding areas, have been rising with resolve for more than seven months, but these days it has taken more of a struggle and popular form following the speech by Nasser Al-Zafzafi in response to a Khateeb (Imam) who accuses the movement of stirring strife. The regime in Morocco, like the Arab regimes, believes that the solution is to be more aggressive and oppressive. Therefore, it has arrested leaders of the movement, including Nasser Al-Zafzafi. The protests increased, but with great wisdom, its leaders and participants denied sectarianism and separatism. These movements earned a good reputation among the general public at home and abroad and was guaranteed automatic support, for example the rallies in many European countries, as well as the mass rally held in Rabat on Sunday, June 11^th, 2017, with slogans against ‘Al-Makhzan’ i.e. the Royal Palace.

The death ofMuhsin Fikri was only a spark that started to rekindle the spirit of struggle in the countryside away from every frame controlled by the state, whether partisan, syndical or "collective". Then a group of Moroccan cities followed them to express their long-standing feelings of injustice poverty, oppression and discrimination. In education, for example, it has reached the slope, it was even said that it needs a miracle to fix it. In health care, it has reached daily suffering. Unemployment has been exacerbated and countless tragedies have resulted. The latest World Bank report published by L'Economiste in April 2017, with figures confirming the fragile economic situation at all levels.

These moves also explain the reason for the high percentage of abstainers from participating in the recent legislative elections, since the democratic game is no longer deceiving the people, and these movements are also catching the breath of the revolution of 20th of February 2011, which was contained by fake reforms and interest deals held with some political currents. But its effect remained muffled in the hearts.

The street movements in Morocco are always overwhelming and is broader and more sweeping than the Arab countries in support for the Ummah's issues and in response to the aggression against it. Everyone remembers this during the Crusader’s aggression against Iraq, and the aggression of the usurping Jewish entity against our people in Palestine... What is required today is that these movements coming from the pain of people and their sense of oppression, which adheres to the true Islam, and rejects separatist calls, and is not based on any suspicious hand, and without going out of being a peaceful struggle, to retrieve what was usurped by the rulers backed by the West, namely the rule of Islam, and the rule of Islam is only by the state, and this state according to the Shariah rules is the Khilafah Rashidah (righteous Caliphate) on the method of Prophethood.

[وَالَّذِينَ إِذَا أَصَابَهُمُ الْبَغْيُ هُمْ يَنتَصِرُونَ]

“And those who, when tyranny strikes them, they defend themselves.” [Ash-Shura: 39]

Ridha Bel Haj
Member of the Central Media Office of Hizb ut Tahrir