13 protesters arrested in Morocco

Moroccan police have arrested 13 people following clashes between police forces and demonstrators protesting against police brutality in Tiflet, 54 Kilometres east of the capital Rabat; human rights activists told AFP yesterday.

Ateka Al-Daef, deputy chairman of the Moroccan Association of Human Rights in Tiflet, said: “Clashes erupted on Tuesday evening and continued until Wednesday between protestors and police forces who arrested 13 people including a 17-year-old minor who was arrested while returning from school. A number of buildings were damaged including the Police Commissioner’s Headquarters during clashes.”

Al-Daef pointed out that clashes erupted when a young man named Mohammed, a mobile phones vendor, threatened to commit suicide in protest against police brutality and torture against him and his wife.

Mohammad El-Mseeh, a member of the 20 February Movement in Tiflet, told AFP: “Mohammad suffered multiple fractures in the pelvis and shoulder when he fell from a telecommunications tower he had climbed earlier in protest of police brutality in front of tens of thousands of people.”

El-Mseeh said police forces attacked people and tried to disperse them triggering clashes between the two sides.

Al-Daef said the police commissioner tortured the young man and his wife to avoid paying for a mobile phone he had purchased a year ago.

According to the Moroccan Association of Human Rights “the police commissioner fabricated charges against Mohammad then later accused him of selling drugs prompting the young man to complain against him to the courts.”