On Saturday, September 29, 2018 from 14PM to 17PM, local Hirak activists in Europe, will host a big rally in Brussels, capital of Belgium to condemn the unjust and outrageous verdicts against the Rif ‘Hirak’ leaders for peacefully protesting their rights and demand their immediate release as well as to support Nasser Zafzafi’s candidature to win the Zakharov prize 2018 for freedom of thought, commonly known as the Sakharov Prize, honours individuals and groups of people who have dedicated their lives to the defense of human rights and freedom of thought.

Geneva, Sep 14, 2018

According to the International Organization for Migration. Between January and July of this year, irregular immigration from northern Morocco to Europe shows massive increase.

Following Rif Hirak protests, Spain is the Mediterranean’s most-sought destination for irregular migrants traveling by sea, or via the country’s African enclaves of Melilla and Ceuta. surpassing Italy and Greece.

IOM’s Missing Migrants Project has documented the deaths of 1,490 men, women and children seeking to cross the Mediterranean in 2018 – more than half of those deaths since 1 June 2018.

Casablanca, August 30 2018

Nasser Zafzafi, Rif ‘Hirak’ protests leader, has declared a mass hunger strike to protest over inhumane conditions of prolonged solitary confinement, his father announced yesterday in a Facebook live video.

June 28, 2018

Amnesty International has censured heavy jail sentences handed down on June 26, 2018 to Hirak Rif activists, saying the guilty verdicts and heavy sentences returned in the cases of 53 Hirak protesters in Casablanca must be overturned due to the unfair nature of their trials.

The London-based rights group said on Wednesday that protests leaders Nasser Zafzafi and Nabil Ahamjik were last night sentenced to 20 years in prison, along with two other protesters, in connection with protests in the Rif region in 2017. Other protesters were given prison sentences ranging from one year to 15 years and fines ranging from 2000 ($230) to 5000 Moroccan Dirhams (about $535).

“These convictions are unsafe given the extremely unfair nature of the trials,” said Heba Morayef, Amnesty International’s Middle East and North Africa Director.

“Nasser Zefzafi and others who have been convicted and imprisoned for protesting peacefully for social justice or covering demonstrations online should never have been on trial in the first place. He must be released and his conviction overturned.”

Al hoceima, April 18, 2018

At least six people including Nasser Zafzafi, leader of the Protest Movement of Rif in Morocco (Hirak), have accused Moroccan police investigators of sexual rape and physical abuse as an alternative weapon to humiliate and punish them. During his recent appearance in court, Mr. Zafzafi asked his mother to leave the courtroom before he began to tell a hideous story of his torture from the minute his house got raided by the Moroccan police up to now. His mother, who fighting cancer left the courtroom with tears in her eyes.

Mr. Zafzafi stated that three of the police men who rained his house rushed to his bedroom, and managed to reach him and shoved his head with a metal bar. They then punched him in the face with their handcuffs, followed by kicks in the stomach. The Leader of the Rif Protest Movement who appeared to be suffering from torture and occasionally paused to catch his breathe added that a police officer had repeatedly hit him and slammed his head to the wall until he was bleeding while asking him to say “Long Live The King”. Mr. Zafzafi continued his story and said that one of the police officers raped him with his finger while another officer pulled down Zafzafi’s pants and raped him with a stick. In addition, Naseer has been detained in a solitary confinement for over ten months now.

In another case, Ayman, 16 year old boy from lmzouren who’s been detained told the judge, ” I was raped by Moroccan Police. They had me chose between penetration with a glass bottle or their penises. They then tied me and three of them started to touch me and putting their fingers in my anus. Ayman stated to the judge that after he lost his strength to resist the rape, they finally raped him as they were calling him a “bastard of Spaniards”. During his court, his mother uncontrollably broke into tears and ran towards him to hug him. Two agents stopped her and dragged her out of the court. The poor mother sadly shouted outside “my child, my soul, what have you done to my child you criminals?”

Farida Houdo, the sister of the abducted Riffian activist Abdelali Houdo said on Dutch radio yesterday that half of the prisoners were terribly raped. While Ahmed Zafzafi, father of Nasser Zafzafi had confirmed that his son has not told all the violence, rape and sexual assault he had gone through inside police station during their investigations.

Abdessadek Bouchtaoui, lawyer of the detained Hirak Rif activists has also confirmed the ongoing mass rapes. He added that reports of sexual abuse were only the “tip of the iceberg” as many victims chose not to publicly speak about it due to family-related reasons.

Despite the seriousness of these cases, the Moroccan justice system did not open an independent investigation nor did they at least issue a statement. On the other hand, the Moroccan government says that this matter is the jurisdiction of the judiciary system. While social networks and human rights groups have condemned the rape allegations, most of the Moroccan political parties have remained silent and have not issued any statement.

Earlier today, hundreds of Rif protesters marched peacefully through the streets of Paris, capital of France, to condemn Morocco’s flagrant violation of human rights in Rif region, and to urge the Moroccan authorities to release more than 400 people detained over protests in Morocco’s neglected Rif region.
[ads2]

Brussels, February 28, 2018

“For many years we have convened this conference series to address a wide variety of issues related to the European Parliament and global governance, but we have never seen such a crowd like this one; There are thousands of people who came out here today simply because they truly care and believe in their just cause, and they can’t all be wrong.”  Says Kati Piri at today’s meeting on the topic of the dire situation in the Rif region (Morocco) in the European Parliament.

Kati Piri is Hungarian-born Dutch politician and Member of the European Parliament (MEP) for the Netherlands since July 2014. She is a member of the Labour Party, part of the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats.

Front Line Defenders condemns the judicial harassment of Abdessadeq El Bouchtaoui, which appears to be the result of his work as a human rights lawyer and the exercise of his freedom of expression, and calls on Moroccan authorities to immediately drop all charges and halt judicial harassment of the human rights defender.

Abdessadeq El Bouchtaoui is a human rights defender and lawyer who represents activists in Al-Hoceima facing charges in relation to “Hirak” Rif protests in Northern Morocco region.

January 18, 2018

Demonstrations in Morocco’s Rif region, the most sustained street protests the country has seen since the Arab uprisings of 2011, showed the limits to Morocco’s tolerance of free speech and the right of peaceful assembly, Human Rights Watch said today in releasing its World Report 2018. Morocco should release all imprisoned peaceful protesters and abolish penal code provisions that allow the government to jail people for expressing their views.