Scores arrested on second day of Morocco protests, NGO says

Scores of people were arrested Sunday in Morocco during a second consecutive day of scattered protests called by a group seeking educational and public health reforms, a local rights group and AFP journalists report.

During the protests in Rabat, security forces prevent groups of young people from gathering in several places in the city center, where dozens are detained.

The protests, which also saw dozens of arrests on Saturday, were initiated by a collective known as “GenZ 212,” whose founders remain unknown.

Hakim Sikouk, president of the Rabat branch of the Moroccan Association for Human Rights (AMDH), reports that there were “more than 100 arrests in Rabat and dozens of others in Casablanca, Marrakesh, Agadir and Souk Sebt.”

Sikouk also says that more than 70 people arrested the day before in Rabat had been released.

AFP was unable to reach the police on Sunday, and the authorities have made no official comment.

The arrests are condemned by the AMDH, as well as opposition parties.

GenZ 212 had put out the call for protests days before on the platform Discord, citing issues such as “health, education and the fight against corruption,” while professing its “love for the homeland.”

The protests come at a time of popular discontent over Morocco’s social inequalities, which have disproportionately affected young people and women.

Recent reports of the deaths of eight pregnant women at a public hospital in Agadir have been a particular source of public outrage.