Rabat – In its latest report on international religious freedom, the US State Department has covered the topic of Morocco and Western Sahara in one report for the first time.
The State Department released the 2020 Report on International Religious Freedom on May 12. The annual document “describes the status of religious freedom, government policies violating religious belief and practices of groups, religious denominations and individuals.”
Unlike the 2019 report released last year, this time around the North African country and Western Sahara are written about undivided, in one section, as the whole of Morocco.
“The government claims the territory of Western Sahara and administers the area it controls by the same constitution, laws, and structures as elsewhere in the country, including laws that deal with religious freedom,” the State Department reports.
Meanwhile, it describes the Polisario Front as “an organization seeking the territory’s independence, [and] disputes this claim to sovereignty over the territory.”
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The report also noted that, in 2020, “there were no reports of authorities prohibiting nonregistered religious groups from practicing their religion in private.” Some of the religious groups “reported occasionally informing authorities of planned large gatherings, for which authorities sometimes provided security.”
The report comes months after the State Department and the CIA adopted the undivided map of Morocco. In late March of this year, the map on the State Department’s Travel.State.Gov website updated its representation of Morocco to reflect the US’ position on the Sahara conflict.
The Washington-based National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) also began using an undivided map of Morocco around the same time.
It is not just US governmental agencies that have embraced the changing dialogue around Morocco’s sovereignty. Both the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and NATO have adopted similar policies.
Growing acceptance of Morocco as a whole comes as a welcome development to both Moroccans at home, as well as those residing abroad.
