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The Hirak Rif Movement or The Rif Movement (Berber languages: ⴰⵎⵓⵙⵙⵓ ⵏ ⴰⵕⵉⴼ, Arabic: حراك الريف, meaning "Movement of the Rif") is a popular mass protest movement that took place in the Berber-speaking Rif region in northern Morocco between October 2016 and June 2017. The movement was triggered by the death of Mouhcine Fikri, a fishmonger who was crushed to death after jumping in the back of a garbage truck attempting to retrieved his allegedly illegal fish merchandise confiscated by local authorities.

The protests were meet with great repression, leading to many violent clashes between the police and protesters in various cities and towns, mainly in the Al Hoceima, Driouch, and Nador provinces. The authorities arrested more than 150 Moroccans, seen by the regime as protagonists/leaders or media activists in the movement, including Nasser Zefzafi, the movement’s leader.

Background

History of Rebellion

The Rif region has a long standing history of rebellion against government control and distrust towards Moroccan central authorities.

In the summer 1921, Rif tribal fighters, defeated the Spanish army who attempted to take control over the region, killing more than 10,000 of their troops at the Battle of Anual – the largest losses suffered in a single day by any colonial force in Africa during the twentieth century. The rebellion's leader, Muhammed bin ‘Abd al-Karim al-Khattabi, officially declared the independence of the Rif Republic on September 18, 1921, and established governing institutions. After a couple of years, the recent state was crushed by French and British forces, and Abd al-Karim surrendered on May 26, 1926.

During and after the colonisation, the Rif has been marginalised by the authorities, and the legacy of resistance passed from one generation to another. Rebellion sparked again between 1957 and 1958, through a popular uprising named the Rif Revolt, which was violently crushed by Moroccan forces, leading to the death of 3000 Rifians. The region was subsequently declared a military zone. The brutal repression left the region with a lasting memory of injustice that translated into distrust for the state.

Marginalisation of the Rif

For decades, Riffians have felt politically, economically and culturally marginalized and discriminated against. Indeed, central authorities began to invest in the region only after a earthquake caused great damages in 2004. Despite this renewed interest, the Rif still suffers from high unemployment rates, over 20 percent of the labor force, twice the national average, while the informal economy prevails. Most households rely on the financial support of family members living in Europe, mainly in the Netherlands and Belgium. The region also lacks education: 43.8% of the population does not have any diploma, compared to 36.9% nationally.

Protest trigger

Mouhcine Fikri, a 31-year-old fish seller, was crushed to death in a rubbish bin on October 28, 2016 in the city of Al Hoceima, as he tried to rescue the fish catch the police had confiscated from him on the grounds that he did not possess a fishing licence. To locals, his death was a striking example of hogra—humiliating treatment by an abusive state. The death sparked a set of protests, that persisted and widen their focus to acknowledge some larger political and social grievances. The protests were described as "the largest display of public anger in Morocco since the Arab Springs in 2011."

Demands

From the outset, Hirak al-Rif activists established a set of social and political demands, including:

• Respecting, preserving and protecting the distinct Berber identity and language of the Rif and the Riffians.
• Release of political prisoners.
• Serious inquiry and trial of those responsible for the death of Mohcine Fikri.
• Demilitarisation of the Rif region.
• Construction of a regional cancer hospital, university, library, theatre, roads and fish processing facilities.
• A say in how promised local investment money is spent.

Movement’s Organisation and Strategy

Mobilisation of Rif regional identity

The movement mobilised the Rif rebel regional identity to guarantee its unity. Protestors waved Rif Republic flag along with the Amazigh banner and sang songs in honour of Abd Al-Karim. Abdelkrim’s picture was also overwhelmingly present during the protests, as a symbol of Rifian nationalism.

Nasser Zefzafi

The movement leader, Nasser Zefzafi, was also central to the movement unity. Zefzafi's capability of alternating between his mother tongue (Amazigh-Rifi), the Moroccan dialect (Darija), and Standard Arabic, enabled him to include in his speeches a 􏰂mix􏰇ture of ideologic􏰁al and politic􏰁al statements that cross traditional divisions, bridging the Islamist and secular as well as Arab and Amazigh.

Nasser Zefzafi

Protest strategy

Hirak Rif activists distrust political parties and elite members of the government in properly answering their demands. Therefore, Nasser Zefzafi bypassed political actors, and addressed the king directly, asking him to intervene personally.

For the first six weeks, Hirak Rif activists marched peacefully. When the police started to limit the protest by closing squares, Nasser Zefzafi relied on Chen-Ten, a contemporary development of the guerrilla tactics used by Rifians against Spanish colonisation between 1921 to 1926, which consists of gathering people rapidly and in an unexpected manner.

To maintain the pressure on the authorities, Hirak Rif’s activists chose to organise frequent and small protests in villages all over the region, rather than great sporadic protests in big cities. To counter the authorities’ ban and repression of the movement, activists sought new ways of protesting by climbing on rooftops, beating pots at night, or protesting on the sea.

Use of social media

Hirak Rif activists highly used social media to mobilise and gain support for the movement. Zefzafi created a Facebook page that attracted tens of thousands of followers and his Facebook live videos were watched by hundreds of thousands of viewers. No Moroccan politician has achieved this viewership, except for Abdelilah Benkirane before being removed from the prime minister's office. Social media were particularly used by Zefzafi to talk to the movement's activists in live to gather them quickly in the streets.

Domestic Response

The Hirak Rif movement was answered by the Moroccan government through a carrot and stick policy: officials alternated between recognising the legitimacy of the demands and acting upon them, and a violent repression of the protest, free speech crackdown and incarceration of activists.

Political Response

In the immediate aftermaths of Mouhcine Fikri’s death, King Mohammed VI called upon the Interior Minister to launch an investigation into the possible involvement of the police in his death and personally presented his condolences to the fisherman’s family in Al-Hoceima.

Faced with continuing discontent, King Mohammed VI has given "instructions" to the new Minister of the Interior, Abdelouafi Laftit, to meet with elected officials and local leaders. Laftit emphasized the state's commitment to "pursue its development approach," while criticizing those who "work to exploit the protest movements in the region in order to fuel situations of social and political tension.

On May 26, 2017, after a truce was established between the Moroccan authorities and the Rif Hirak’s leaders until the end of July, the ministry of Islamic Affairs, Ahmed Toufic, asked Rifian imams to deliver sermons on youth activism creating fitna (chaos) between Muslims. The political use of religion enraged the movement’s activists and broke the truce, leading to great protests in Al Hoceima. Those accusations were already following a series of claims that Hirak activists were funded by foreign governements, and were 'separatists', charges they have thoroughly denied. From May 2017, the repression was intensified.

On 28 June 2017, speaking on behalf of the king, Prime Minister Saadeddine Othmani issued a video statement, in which he commended the king's directives to conduct development projects in all of Morocco, not just in Al Hoceima, while he expressed his regrets regarding the crackdown of El Eid (see below), and the resulting injuries amongst the police and population. In the statement, Othmani also reported the king's wish for a very strict respect of the conditions of a fair trial of the 150 arrested in the Hirak, while also calling for respect of the law in dealing with claims of torture reported by the Rif detainees.

King Mohammed VI's only official direct response came in a communiqué read on Sunday 25 June 2017, by the spokesperson of the Palace, Abdelhak El Mrini. In this statement, the king alluded to what he described as "delays" in a project he claims to have launched for the development of Al Hoceima in October 2015. The king then blamed his ministers for presenting projects to him which do not have realistic expectations and budgets, and stressed that his "development and social projects should not be politicised".

Police crackdown

Simultaneously, the Moroccan authorities organised a police crackdown of the protests, and violent confrontations between the politics and the protestors have been recurrent. On May 18, 2017, protestors managed to break the military ban and the numerous checkpoints to join the centre of Al Hoceima for a massive protest, followed by a general strike.

The leader of the Rif mass protests, Nasser Zefzafi, was arrested by Moroccan law enforcement and intelligence operatives using telephone tracing technology on May 29, 2017, close to a beach near Al Hoceima. Zefzafi’s arrest was ordered after he allegedly interrupted a preacher at a mosque on Friday and called for further demonstrations. Prosecutors said the arrest was ordered after Zefzafi “obstructed, in the company of a group of individuals, freedom of worship” at the mosque in Al-Hoceima. Right after his arrest, Zefzafi was flown in a military helicopter directly to Casablanca (500 km away), where he is being held and was tried by a court of law for charges of sedition and conspiracy as of March 10, 2018. The Moroccan authorities chose to detain him away from his native city and his popular base to defuse the protest movement and to avoid mass escalations. As a result, he was sentenced to 20 years in prison.

On Monday 26 June, which coincided with the celebration of Eid el-Fitr, the security forces (police, gendarmerie and auxiliary forces) launched a vast crackdown in Al Hoceima and the surrounding areas, to disband a planned march in solidarity with the detainees. The violence of the day resulted in the arrest of about 60 people, and many more unaccounted for, along with a large number of injuries amongst the population, also unaccounted for due to the media blockade. The government official press then published various stories in its media claiming that 39 members of police were injured.

On July 23, 2017, in a speech commemorating his 18th anniversary of his ascension to the throne, King Muhammad VI rebuked local officials in northern Morocco for their failure to implement development projects in a timely manner. He also pardoned a number of activists who had been detained, including the singer Silya Ziani.

Free speech crackdown

The press also played a major role in discrediting the movement’s leaders, spreading unfounded rumors and accusing activists of being separatists and of creating fitna – division and disorder in the community, a serious accusation in Morocco. As an example, Nasser Zefzafi was compared in the newspaper Le 360, close to the power, with Al Baghdadi, leader of the Islamic State.

El Mahdaoui

The Moroccan Association for Human Rights (AMDH) has voiced its concern over the arrest of more than 400 people in connection with the Hirak since May 2017, when an unprecedented crackdown initiated. Among them were eight journalists – seven are still detained – who covered the protests for local news websites and were prosecuted under the criminal code instead of Morocco’s new press law, which does not include imprisonment sentences.

The journalist Hamid El Mahdaoui is a symbol of the free speech crackdown. Since he launched the news site "Badil.info" in 2014, El Mahdaoui has become one of the most prominent faces in the media world in Morocco, not only because of his iconoclastic personality, but also because of a series of lawsuits that have been filed against him by various state security services and ministries. During the Rif protests, El Mahdaoui posted several critical videos supporting demands by the peaceful protesters and decrying repression by security forces. He was eventually arrested, mistreated, sentenced to three months, then to one year in jail, and accused of a felony that will likely end up with a heavy sentence. He finally served a three years prison sentence, and was liberated on July 20, 2020.

Legacies

Protest in support of the Rif Hirak movement in Paris

Five years later, protests have disintegrated. The political and economic demands were left unanswered, and some activists are still in jail. However, the movement changed the political context in Morocco, and particularly in the Rif.

Firstly, Rifians found a new solidarity. While the movement’s repression forced many youths to emigrate in Europe, where great part of the Rifian diaspora is located, they continued the movement with the greatly mobilised diaspora. The revival of Rifian nationalism enable a great unity between the people, both in Morocco and abroad.

Moreover, the Hirak was once again able to demonstrate the crisis in Morocco. In this sense, the movement has helped build a growing political consciousness in the state, along with a culture of protest, making it harder for the government to ignore socio-economic issues. Indeed, for the first time, a social movement was able to politicise socio-economic demands and got national and international attention for it, while also transcending the elitist middle classes.