Tangier Residents Protest Plan to Replace Public Garden with Parking Lot

To make themselves heard, NGOs and representatives of civil society demonstrated last Sunday in the Mandoubia gardens to protest against the project of an underground parking lot in place of the garden. "This initiative aims to draw attention to the dangers threatening the green spaces of Tangier. It is in fact an invitation to all local activists and associations to face any attempt to destroy the city’s gardens," explain the organizers to the newspaper Aujourd’hui le Maroc.

For the population, "the gardens are the lungs and the historical memory of the city", while the city intends to carry out "this project encompassing the main avenues and arteries to decongest the city".

The newspaper recalls that the movement was born first on social networks following the protests of students who have launched several pages and calls to demonstrate with the slogan: "Tangier, let’s save the Mandoubia gardens".

This garden is very well known and appreciated by the people of Tangier and dates back to the time when the city was still an international zone. "Thanks to its beauty and strategic location, it was used at the time as a venue for organizing major festivals and receiving official delegations from various foreign countries. Part of these gardens has long been set up to accommodate cannons that belonged to Mediterranean fleets in the past," writes Aujourd’hui le Maroc.

Will the protesters manage to make the city authorities back down?