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Rabat – Chairman of Morocco’s National Human Rights Council (CNDH) Driss El Yazami has announced that the number of demonstrations has increased in Morocco over the past three years.
El Yazami, who was speaking at a press conference on this Wednesday in Rabat, revealed that Morocco has seen over 14,000 protests and demonstrations every year since 2013, an average of 40 protests every day.
Commenting on these figures, El Yazami said the number of protests and demonstrations has notably increased during 2013, 2014 and 2015 compared to the past decade.
The CNDH chairman said that most of these demonstrations took place without authorization from local authorities. However, he said riot police only intervened to suppress protests 303 times in 2014.
El Yazami defended Moroccans’ right to protest, saying that taking to the streets in order to demand their rights is a form of expressing citizenship and should not be considered something “dangerous.”
“Protests don’t threaten the status of the state. Instead, they demonstrate the maturity of citizens and their awareness of their rights,” El Yazami explained.
These figures confirm the findings of a 2014 Human Rights Watch report which revealed that Moroccans have been exercising their rights to hold peaceful marches and rallies to demand political reform and protest government actions since popular protests swept the region in February 2011.
The HRW report noted that Moroccan police mostly allowed these protests, but on some occasions in 2013 police dispersed protesters.
