Morocco Defends Police Response to Teacher Protests, Vows Firm Stance on Public Order

"The Ministry of the Interior, while specifying that the intervention of the public forces was proportionate and respected all legal provisions, far from the fabricated images circulated on social networks, stresses that its total concern for the guarantee of the exercise of the rights and freedoms guaranteed by the Constitution is equal only to its commitment to face, firmly, all practices that violate the law and threaten security and public order," the Ministry of the Interior said in a statement.

And to specify that it was "noted that the latter persisted in their logic of rejection by increasing the pace of protest actions, disproportionately compared to the responses provided by the government" which, according to the ministry, has "positively" responded to their demands.

What triggered the police intervention was the protesters’ intention to organize a night sit-in in Rabat, in violation of the ban imposed by the government and the proposal by the Wilaya to provide them with about fifty buses to transport them to their respective cities and the arrangement of a housing space. These proposals were, according to the authorities, rejected by the protesters.

"At the end of the dialogue and the legal warnings, the public forces decided to end the sit-in by using water cannons and dispersing the protesters, some of whom persisted in their practices of incitement and provocation of the public forces, through the throwing of stones and bottles, injuring 21 police officers and 05 elements of the Auxiliary Forces," the ministry also said.