Washington Applauds Morocco’s “Notable Progress” on Religious Freedom

Rabat – US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said that Morocco is among the countries that have experienced “significant progress” in regard to religious freedoms.

Blinken made his remarks in a speech on Thursday on the occasion of the release of the State Department’s “2021 International Religious Freedom Report.”

The annual report details the state of religious freedom in nearly 200 countries and territories around the world.

“Respect for religious freedom isn’t only one of the deepest held values and a fundamental right. It’s also, from my perspective, a vital foreign policy priority,” Blinken said.

With the report shedding light on the notable progress made by several countries in terms of the right to freedom of religion, Blinken lauded Morocco’s initiative to “renovate Jewish heritage sites and include Jewish history in the Moroccan public school curriculum.”

The kingdom’s renovation projects also include several synagogues and cemeteries, among them the Jewish cemetery in the city of Fes, which has 13,000 graves.

Morocco is also the only country in the Muslim-Arab world where the state funds projects to restore Jewish cemeteries and renovate Jewish neighborhoods and religious sites.

Report’s findings

The Moroccan constitution declares Islam to be the religion of the state, guarantees the freedoms of thought, expression, and assembly and says the state “guarantees to everyone the freedom to practice their religious affairs.”

The report noted that King Mohammed VI’s initiative to renovate Jewish heritage sites, which was implemented in December 2021, also intends to reinstate the original names of some of the country’s Jewish neighborhoods.

As part of the kingdom’s commitment to preserve its religious and cultural heritage and serve as a symbol of tolerance, the Ministry of Education made several reforms in the religious curriculum used in primary and secondary education that seek to promote “universal values of liberty, empathy, solidarity, and honesty.”

Similarly, the US State Department continues, the Moroccan government announced in October 2021 a change to the public school curriculum to include Jewish heritage and history in both Arabic and French.

While Jewish and Christian citizens continued to state that elementary and high school curricula did not include mention of the historical legacy and current presence of their groups in the country, the report emphasized that Morocco “continued to fund the study of Jewish culture and heritage at state-run universities.”

The office of International Religious Freedom stated that “Muslim citizen children and youths continued to study at private Christian and Jewish elementary and high schools, reportedly because these schools maintained a reputation for offering a high quality education.”

To further promote tolerance and guarantee the rights of minority communities living in the country, the Moroccan government has permitted the display and sale of Bibles in French, English, and Spanish, with a limited number of Arabic translations in a limited number of bookshops for use in higher education courses.