Moroccan Animal Rights Groups Demand Justice for Burned Cats in Safi

Among the associations that have spoken out following this unqualifiable act is the association "Comme chiens et chats Maroc". Its leaders have hired a well-known lawyer for his activism with associations involved in the animal cause. "We decided to refer the matter to the courts because we have to act against this kind of crime," the president of the association "Comme chiens et chats Maroc" had confided to HuffPost Maroc. This was confirmed by Me Rharib. "I filed an official complaint (registered under No. 2029-3101/2019) with the public prosecutor’s office at the court of first instance in Safi. We discussed it for almost an hour," he said to HuffPost.

Moreover, the lawyer is pleased that the public prosecutor’s office has ordered the opening of an investigation based on the complaint. "It is important for us that the public prosecutor’s office gets into the habit of considering animal torture as a crime," he argues. In reality, the objective of all this is above all to defend the rights of animals by pleading for a jurisprudence that would make it possible to seriously combat violence against animals.

According to Me Rharib, this trial will represent a real turning point for this association. "We have a legal void, articles 601 and 602 of the penal code have fallen into disuse. If civil society, volunteers and citizens do not act, the blatant mistreatment of animals in Morocco will continue to tarnish its image in the world," he says.

To return to the facts that took place on the evening of May 14, the number of cats killed was at least twenty. The culprit, a fully lucid man who harassed and threatened the young woman who had taken to feeding the cats, finally decided to burn the animals alive.