The flame of the Rif Popular Movement (Al Hirak al Chaabi, in Tamazigh) went out. The embers are confined in the houses of this northern Moroccan region. But they are fueled by the diaspora of activists in Europe, who assure that the wave of protests in 2016 and 2017 have sown the ground for the contestation to emerge in the future. “Hirak has left a very important collective conscience. The bases of the movement, which defends not bowing down before a dictatorial regime, will bear fruit in future generations”, confides Reda Benzaza, one of the promoters of the movement and a friend of its leader, Nasser Zefzafi.
This week marked the fifth anniversary of the sentences of 54 of its activists, on June 27, 2018, including Zefzati, Nabil Ahamjik and Samir Ighid, who are serving 20 years in a Tangier prison, where Mohamed El is also Haki (15 years old), Zakaria Adahchour (15) and Mohamed Jelloul (10). The spokespersons for the movement outside of Morocco take advantage of the date to demand their amnesty, considering that they were imprisoned for demonstrating peacefully. In Catalonia, for example, they have the support of the Center Internacional Escarré per les Minorities Ètniques i les Nacions (Ciemen), which has brought a report on the region to the Catalan Parliament. “The violation of human rights in the Rif continues to be worrying and has fallen into oblivion. The Moroccan authorities continue to repress and harass activists and journalists for the peaceful exercise of their human rights,” says Ciemen.
The protests erupted in October 2016, after the death of fish vendor Mohcin Fikri, who was crushed inside a garbage truck while trying to retrieve merchandise confiscated by the authorities. Ten meters from the scene of the events lived Benzaza, then a professor at the Spanish institute of Al Hoceima. He took to the streets to demand justice for Fikri. Then the demands grew.
For eight months the streets of Al Hoceima and nearby towns throbbed with hundreds of demonstrations. They asked for social, economic, health and cultural improvements for a territory historically marginalized by the central authorities and, moreover, militarized. They protested against abuse and neglect. And they addressed the king directly, considering the government and political parties as part of the problem. They obtained some promises, but they were not the signed commitments that they demanded, explains Benzaza, who, due to his command of languages, was the interlocutor with the international media. Almost the entire population of the Rif joined; some women even assumed leadership roles, an “unheard of” event, says Saliha Ahouari, an activist from the Riffin living in Madrid. “When we saw our mothers leave, we thought they couldn’t stop us,” she recalls. “But then came a crackdown that changed our lives.”
It was the most serious political crisis facing Mohamed VI since he ascended to the throne in 1999. The state responded with hundreds of arrests. Between 400, according to the official figure, and 1,200 individuals were prosecuted for participating in the protests, the Ciemen report states. 129 minors were arrested, a dozen of them ended up in jail. The detainees denounced torture. “Nasser revealed before a court that he was raped the day he was arrested,” highlights Benzaza, who had to go into exile.
“In the last seven years the Rif has been emptied. The population of Al Hoceima has been reduced by 60% due to the massive exile to Europe”, laments Ahouari. “The arrivals of Rif people with boats have increased exponentially,” adds Benzaza, who advises migrants from the Association for Human Rights of Andalusia, in Malaga. “El Rif is in post-traumatic shock. There is a large presence of security forces and intelligence services. People have been arrested for liking Facebook. Economically, there are no opportunities”, portrays Benzaza.
For all these reasons, the Rif community abroad, very present in countries like Spain, the Netherlands and Belgium, keeps the fight alive. “The force of the movement is no longer in the Rif. Hope is found in the diaspora”, remarks Benzaza, who has taken the cause to the institutions led by left-wing parties, although the response is timid. “The position of the Rif conflict on the scale of political priorities in our country and in Europe has lost strength,” laments Ciemen. An exception is the approval by the European Parliament last January of a resolution against Morocco for not respecting rights. The immediate release of Zefzafi and the rest of the prisoners was called for. The PSOE voted against and the PP abstained. Pressure from Rabat was revealed.
