Young Moroccans join wave of anti-government protests

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Young Moroccans apparently angry about the state of the economy and their job prospects have joined a wave of anti-government protests across the country this week, triggering hundreds of arrests and three deaths when security forces fired on demonstrators near Agadir on Wednesday night.

The unrest has spread to at least a dozen cities including Rabat, the capital, Casablanca, the kingdom’s economic hub, and the port city of Tangier.

Rioters have looted shops and torched cars in poorer cities including Salé, across the river from Rabat, where masked young men smashed windows and threw stones at police cars, according to media reports.

More than 260 police officers and 20 protesters have been injured, while 40 police vehicles and 20 private cars have been burned, the interior ministry has said.

Demonstrators have criticised the government for pouring money into preparations for hosting the 2030 football World Cup while leaving public services underfunded.

Slogans such as “Healthcare first — we don’t want the World Cup!” have been chanted at the demonstrations, which appear to be leaderless but have been encouraged by a group of anonymous youths calling themselves “GenZ 212”, a reference to the younger generation and Morocco’s international dialling code.

The protesters, using social media platforms such as TikTok and Instagram and the gaming app Discord, seem to have led to a groundswell of public anger in a country with a high youth unemployment rate of 37.7 per cent and big gaps between rich and poor.

The Moroccan Association for Human Rights said around 1,000 people had been arrested in the nightly protests which started on Saturday.

Morocco has started building a massive stadium near Casablanca and plans to renovate and upgrade many existing sports facilities. Preparations also include big investments in expanding roads, railways and airports to cope with an expected influx of more than 10mn football fans.

Morocco, Spain and Portugal were chosen last year as co-hosts of the 2030 World Cup after submitting a joint bid. The Kingdom expects the event will boost its GDP by 1.7 per cent and create more than 100,000 jobs.

Authorities in the north African kingdom said three people were killed in the southern town of Lqliaa near Agadir when the Royal Gendarmerie opened fire on a crowd of demonstrators. They alleged the shooting was in self-defence to prevent protesters from stealing the soldiers’ weapons.

The protests are the most significant to erupt in Morocco since a wave of demonstrations demanding democratic reform in 2011, when people in countries across the Arab world rose up against autocratic rulers.

Morocco, however, has also witnessed a localised explosion of public rage in the impoverished northern Rif region, which lasted six months from October 2016.

Inhabitants angered by the marginalisation of their region staged mass protests to demand jobs, services and development projects.

On that occasion, after several weeks of peaceful rallies, authorities cracked down hard on the protesters. Hundreds were arrested and leaders were sentenced to long jail terms.