Morocco jails 10 Rif activists

Protesters, supporting Rif Movement leader Nasser Zefzafi stage a demonstration demanding from government to take action for development of the region, in Hoceima, Morocco on 11 June 2017 [Jalal Morchidi / Anadolu Agency]

Ten Moroccan activists were handed prison terms of between six and 20 months on Thursday following a crackdown on protesters in Al-Hoceima, the Anadolu Agency reported.

The official spokesman of the Moroccan government, Mustafa Al-Khalfi, said 176 demonstrators have been arrested in the Al-Hoceima Governorate in the north of the country by Thursday.

Read: Protests resume in Morocco after heavy handed response by government

Sixty-three others are awaiting trials but are not being held in police custody, he added.

The government, Al-Khalfi explained, is looking into reports of torture at the hands of judicial and security forces in the country, noting that the National Council for Human Rights had reported the abuses.

#RifProtest

Wide scale protests have been held in Al-Hoceima since October after a fisherman was crushed to death in a garbage truck after he tried to salvage his catch which police had confiscated and thrown away.

Unless otherwise stated in the article above, this work by Middle East Monitor is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. If the image(s) bear our credit, this license also applies to them. What does that mean? For other permissions, please contact us.