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May 19, 2024 09:35
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- dorkasaurus_rex
- Jun 10, 2005
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gawrsh do you think any women will be there
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There was a big protest in Morocco against racism recently:
http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/dozens-demonstrate-morocco-racism-25436015
quote:
Dozens of activists demonstrated Thursday in Morocco's capital in a rare protest against racism following the murder earlier of a Senegalese migrant.
The protest comes a year after Morocco announced a new immigration policy aimed at making it easier for migrants to legalize their status.
Thousands of sub-Saharan Africans come every year to Morocco hoping to cross into Europe to find a new life, and tensions often flare between them and residents.
Senegalese migrant Charles Ndour was visiting Tangiers from Casablanca with friends when he was attacked by a mob and fatally stabbed Aug. 30.
Hundreds of migrants marched the next day to protest his death and the numerous attacks they say are subjected to by residents. Police dispersed the demonstration, arrested 26 and deported most of them.
"The migrants in Morocco are in real danger," said Lucile Daumas of Atac Maroc, one of the groups organizing the demonstration, as she stood before parliament in downtown Rabat. "He (Ndour) was killed just because he had dark skin."
She added that he was the sixth African migrant killed in the last year and said that while the new migration policy had noble ideas, there had been little change on the ground.
Ndour's death has caused a certain degree of embarrassment to Morocco, which is presenting itself as a major economic partner to sub-Saharan Africa, with recent royal trips to West Africa.
On Sept. 4, government spokesman Mustapha Khalfi emphasized the importance of arresting those involved in the attack.
On Wednesday, the governor of Casablanca also held meetings with organizations catering to migrants as well as representatives of African consulates to seek ways to better integrate migrants into daily life.
There are an estimated 40,000 sub-Saharan Africans living in Morocco, most seeking to cross to Spain. Morocco has pledged its northern neighbor to stem the flow.
This is notable and heartwarming because Moroccans are quite racist towards their fellow Africans:
http://www.vice.com/en_uk/read/are-moroccan-gangsters-being-paid-to-beat-up-african-migrants-803
quote:
“gently caress Africa,” snarls the young Moroccan kid as he pushes past the café table, spitting on the ground and sticking his middle finger up at my Senegalese translator, Babs. My first taster of racism in Tangier happens within five minutes of us sitting down, but 34-year-old Babs appears utterly unphased.
I arrived in Tangier during a tense period in Moroccan politics. Since January of 2014, the government has been trialling a process to grant illegal immigrants resident status in Morocco. However, although this seems to be a positive step, tensions are brewing in Tangier due to many of the city’s illegal immigrants refusing to take part in the scheme and settle in a country that sees them routinely abused by Moroccans and the Moroccan authorities.
“This type of thing happens every day,” shrugs Babs. I ask if he’s ever seen abuse move from verbal to violent, and he nods, rolling up his sleeve to reveal a deep scar across his wrist, caused by an attempted stabbing one night in the medina quarter. A Moroccan teenager tried to stab him in the stomach as he walked home to his hotel; Babs deflected with his hand before managing to run and hide in the warren of back alleys and boardwalks that make up the old town.
Idris, 25 was stabbed repeatedly in the arms and legs by three Moroccan gang members
“They [the Moroccans] do everything [to us] like it’s no problem. And sometimes when you go to police to tell them things, you know what they tell you? They tell you ‘So? Go and buy a knife.’ They don’t care.”
He also recounts the three times he’s been arrested on Tangier beach by Moroccan police as he and other migrants tried to smuggle themselves across to mainland Spain by inflatable boat, and how on each occasion police have stolen his money and phone after detaining him. The more I listen, the more evident it becomes that the migrants gathered in Tangier – most of whom are trying to reach Europe illegally – are trapped in a brutal limbo of violence and victimisation. And all of this despite the government’s reforms.
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As a port city on the African frontier, Tangier’s always been a cultural crossroads of African, Middle Eastern and European sensibilities, but recently the spatial politics of the city have become heavily geared towards obscuring black African migrants from visibility, and feeding a violent engine of isolation and abuse against them. The most obvious example of this was the building of the city’s new port at Tanger-Med in 2007, which sits 40 km east of Tangier.
Before Tanger-Med, the old town’s port area and car parks were littered with Moroccans and sub-Saharan migrants trying to smuggle themselves across to Europe by hooking themselves under trucks. But now, with all trucks diverted to Tanger-Med – as well as the increased security around the old town’s ferry port – illegal immigrants aren't such a common sight.
“Tangier has a huge tourist economy, and one of the reasons for building the cargo port at Tanger-Med was to separate the tourist ferries and the cargo to help disassociate the city’s image with illegal immigrants. The city doesn’t want the tourists coming off the ferry to see all that,” said a US post-grad researcher and port specialist I interviewed, who asked to remain anonymous.
Senegalese immigrants squat the vacant buildings in Boukhaelf
Today, Tangier’s migrant population exist on the ragged edges of society, living mostly in the Boukhalef neighbourhood, 15 km out from the city centre, where they squat the area’s empty high rises. Boukhalef is now the city’s primary flashpoint for violence and racist attacks, so Babs and I flagged a taxi and headed up there.
Despite King Mohammed VI’s 2013 decree to reform government policy and address widespread humans rights violations and the poor treatment of black African migrants in Morocco, there were several standout cases of police violence around December of 2013 that pushed Boukhalef to boiling point. These were the deaths of Cameroonian Cedric and 19-year-old Senegalese immigrant Moussa Seck, a friend of Babs. On both occasions the police cited the deaths as accidental, a result of routine operations to combat drug trafficking in Boukhalef, prompting widespread fear and anger among the migrant community living there.
In recent months, police activity in Boukhalef has dropped dramatically, according to its residents. But those from sub-Saharan Africa living there have seen a daily increase in violence perpetrated by Moroccan gangs. This has led to heavy speculation that they are being paid by the police as a clandestine approach to flushing out Boukhalef’s migrants without attracting criticism from the EU.
We arrived there just after midday, the neighbourhood a mass of half-built tower blocks, wide, dusty roads and scrappy little cafes.
“Before, police they come, they enter, they shoot. We wake up 4AM at night and we go sleep [in the] bush – we leave our houses because we know at 7PM they come here and they gently caress up every black boy [in Boukhalef].”
This has been your Morocco update.
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Sep 14, 2014 05:44
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Dec 24, 2013 22:22
