Moroccan youth protesters stay on the streets
Half of the country is younger than 35. They’re protesting for better schools and hospitals, as the kingdom spends big on football stadiums for the 2030 World Cup.
Oussama Bajji in Rabat
After a brief pause, young Moroccans returned to the streets of Rabat on Saturday. Rallying outside Parliament, they demanded better healthcare, education reforms, and action on corruption and rising prices.
The protests are organised by online youth collective GenZ 212, which is demonstrating over inequality and a cost of living crisis that has hit ordinary Moroccans hard. On 27 September, the first day of protests, demonstrations took place in Casablanca, Rabat, Souk Sebt, Tangier, and Agadir.
In Casablanca, 32-year-old podcast producer Hamza El Fadil joined the protests. El Fadil, known for his podcast In Another Format, said he felt compelled to move from commentary to action. “The biggest challenge I was facing was the absence of freedom of expression.”
El Fadil was injured in clashes with police and detained along with about 70 others before being released after midnight. “Arrest didn’t change my position,” he said. “We’re defending people’s right to freedom, dignity, and social justice.” More than 400 people have been arrested in nearly three weeks of protests that have left three people dead and hundreds injured, according to the interior ministry.
The unrest began after eight women died during childbirth at a hospital in Agadir, which ignited anger over collapsing public services. Protesters have since accused the government of pouring billions into stadiums for the 2030 football World Cup, while neglecting hospitals and schools. Morocco is a constitutional monarchy, where more than half the population is younger than 35, yet unemployment among 15-to-24-year-olds has reached 36%, according to the Associated Press.
“Stadiums are here, but where are the hospitals?” has become a common chant. In Rabat, Al-Mahdi Sabiq, 26, was in a park with about 20 other young protesters planning their next move when his aunt called from Souk Sebt, his hometown in central Morocco, telling him the police were at his family home. Hours later, police detained him and questioned him for six hours.
The protests were organised through the messaging app Discord, the same app used recently by protesters in Nepal.
“Discord was our only way to communicate,” said Sabiq, who works with civil society groups, describing how youth from different cities connected without traditional structures.
For Farouk Mahdaoui, a lawyer and national secretary of the youth wing of the Democratic Left Federation, his participation was stopped even before it began. He was arrested within minutes of arriving at the protest outside Parliament in Rabat – before he could join the crowd. Mahdoui, who is married with a young daughter, had come to support youth demanding free education, healthcare, social justice, and dignity.
“I entered the police station and sat on a hard bench, surrounded by my comrades. Fear was written on the faces of some around me,” Mahdaoui said. He spent about six hours in detention, answering questions and waiting as police filed reports, before being released late in the night.
Prime Minister Aziz Akhannouch has since called for dialogue, and King Mohammed VI promised reforms to improve public services and job creation. This week, the government allocated 140-billion dirhams (about $15.3-billion) to health and education – a 23% increase from last year – and promised to create 27,000 new public-sector jobs.
Sabiq remains sceptical.
“Daily expenses, unemployment – these are our daily challenges,” he said. “Rights and demands are seized, not given. We face a large wall resembling the Berlin Wall. Each of us must leave a crack in it. One day it will fall.”