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Moroccan protesters held without trial on hunger strike
AFP Jun 30, 2014
Rabat (AFP) – Nine jobless Moroccan graduates held for three months without trial after being arrested at a protest in the capital are on hunger strike, activists said on Monday.
The strike comes amid high youth unemployment in the North African country, where peaceful protests by school-leavers unable to find work are often violently dispersed by the police.
The nine graduates, all of whom hold master’s degrees, were arrested outside the central train station in Rabat on April 3 at a demonstration to demand jobs.
Abdelali Bargouti, a member of the support committee for unemployed detainees, said the nine went on a 48-hour hunger strike last week to protest against the conditions in which they were being held and the delays to their trial.
“But the prison authorities did not respond to their demands, so they decided to begin an open-ended hunger strike,” Bargouti said.
The police have brought 10 charges against the detainees, according to their lawyer, Rachid Tass, including disturbing public order, assaulting the security forces and taking part in an illegal gathering.
But they have still not been brought to trial.
“It is not reasonable to keep these young people behind bars without trial,” Tass said, adding that doing so was a violation of Morocco’s new constitution and penal code.
Morocco is struggling to create employment opportunities amid a rise in job seekers.
The unemployment rate reached 10.2 percent in the first quarter of 2014 compared with 9.4 percent a year earlier, the state planning commission said last month.
But the figure is much higher among the youth population, with 33.1 percent of Moroccan men aged between 15 and 24 unable to find work, and 46.2 percent of women in the same category unemployed.
