During the ‘Arab Spring’ uprisings which swept from Tunisia to Libya, Egypt and Syria in 2011, a less dramatic uprising forced significant change in Morocco, a former French colony ruled by the authoritarian regime of a centuries-old monarchy. The ‘February 20th movement’, as the pro-democracy front became known after the first mass rallies in the capital Rabat, rallied hundreds of thousands in street protests around the country calling for democratic constitutional reform, the respect of human rights, a greater share of national wealth and an end to corruption.
While the popular unrest obtained free parliamentary elections and a limited curbing of King Mohammed VI’s autocratic powers, the many aspirations of the movement were largely unsatisfied and divisions among the opposition parties and groups led to the movement petering out as of 2012.
Abdellah Lefnatsa is responsible for economic and social rights with the Moroccan Association of Human Rights, whose activities in defending democratic rights in the country have been increasingly targeted of late by the ruling regime. In this interview with Ilhem Rachidi for Mediapart, Lefnatsa, a member of the Moroccan Marxist party Annahj Addimocrati (Democratic Way), analyses the collapse of the February 20th movement and denounces continuing rights abuses amid what he calls “the revenge” of the authorities against those who dared defy them in 2011.
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Mediapart: After its adoption by the French lower house, the National Assembly, on June 23rd, and by the foreign affairs commission of the upper house, the Senate, on July 1st, a new agreement on judicial cooperation between France and Morocco has been fiercely criticised by human rights organisations. What is your opinion of the agreement?
Abdellah Lefnatsa: It is shameful on the part of France and it favours the impunity that is rife here in Morocco. It is unfortunately also a blow for torture victims of French nationality who hoped to obtain justice before their own institutions. Economic and political interests have taken priority over justice, democracy. It is a black moment for the French politics and judicial system, which will submit itself to the Moroccan justice of class, above all in a national context of repression against social movements, [and] human rights activists.
Mediapart: Since the summer of 2014, several dozen activities organised by the Moroccan Association of Human Rights (AMDH) have been prohibited. More recently, a sit-in against the country's participation in the military offensive in Yemen was suppressed. Why do the Moroccan authorities target the AMDH?
A.L.: We’ve now had 80 activities prohibited. We have 13 sections that haven’t obtained certificates. The authorities don’t want to recognise the newly elected offices, so we can’t hope to use public halls. Before, we obtained them, but now we’re told that the hall is occupied or under maintenance. But it’s not only the AMDH. Since February 20th 2011 we have gone through every stage. At first the government made symbolic concessions. Once the wave had passed, it took things back in hand and relaunched the repression. There are reprisals against all the movements which demonstrated. The government is trying to subdue all the social movements because it has no answer to the problems raised by the movements, those of trades unions, the inhabitants of shanty-towns, of rural zones. For it, the response is that which goes along with the anti-democratic nature of the regime. Certainly, it was able to buy social peace with the unions, with the reformist political parties, but spontaneous movements emerged.
The AMDH is targeted because it adopted the economic and social demands of these movements. It also suffers reprisal measures because it defended all the victims of repression. In [the southern-central town of] Ouarzazate, notably, where 47 [legal] complaints were made out against union officials. The militants of the February 20th movement are jailed, chased, harassed. Street vendors are also repressed. The repression strikes student movements. There is not one day when you don’t hear about the repression within the universities. So the AMDH is not the only one to suffer repression. But it receives media coverage, and it defends all those people. Why did they arrest the French journalists at the AMDH, who were expelled last February, and why did they send in 30 [police] officers?
These social movements supported by the AMDH demand a different share of the riches. In Morocco, you can express yourself on the condition of not raising the real problems. In Europe as well, you can shout against your government, on condition of not touching the distribution of wealth. But, all the same, over there [Europe] it’s the rule of law. Here, it’s despotism. The regime does not tolerate these demands. It can allow you to criticise the government, political parties, unions, [and] some administrative officials - those who implement, not those who decide.
Enlargement : Illustration 1
Mediapart: The authorities raise questions over your funding sources. What is your reply to them?
A.L.: Our finances are approved by the state. Every year we declare our financial accounts. We receive money from abroad with the approbation of the state, in the framework of the cooperation between the Moroccan state and these countries. The money doesn’t go solely to NGOs, but it contributes to development, for example through programmes for drinking water, electricity in rural parts. If the Minister of the Interior, or whoever, has suspicions, let them take up legal action. These accusations are pretexts to justify repression against activists and the prohibiting of our activities. We took [the case of] a ban on one activity before the justice system and we won our case.
Mediapart: So, given it found in your favour, the Moroccan justice system can be impartial?
A.L.: It was an exception. We won our case in one matter but in the others we can’t even take legal action. We don’t have the proof of the prohibitions. We’re told that meeting halls are not available, but most of the time we don’t have the proof with which to go ahead with legal action.
Mediapart: The movement of protest has considerably weakened over the past few years. Why do you think the repression is now intensifying?
A.L.: At the start we were in a context of an uprising of the people with the February 20th movement. Subsequently, the regime steeped back. Once the movement weakened, it came back on the attack. It is taking revenge on all the organisations which chanted slogans against despotism, [against] injustice. That began with the government of [Abdelilah] Benkirane [Morocco’s Head of Government since November 2011]. The regime told itself ‘I’ve set up new institutions, I’ve softened the impact’. After the introduction of the new constitution, the elections and the Benkirane government, the regime said to itself ‘enough concessions’, and it returned to measures that represent its true nature, those of an anti-democratic regime. The rule is repression. The tinkering from time to time with the facade of the regime changes nothing in its nature.
The political and social struggle brought pressure, and gains were obtained thanks to that pressure and militant acts. Some speak today as if the story began with the speech [by King Mohammed VI announcing constitutional reforms] of March 9th 2011. The regime makes use of these achievements as if they were by its own initiative. It never recognizes the strength of the democratic struggles. What is essential is our struggle that put pressure on the regime and the Western states.
Mediapart: You are one of a small group of people who continue to demonstrate regularly. Why do you continue to be militant despite the risks you run and the low level of mobilisation?
A.L.: Because I defend the values of the February 20th movement, its demands, its slogans, which we expressed as militants of the Left, for a society where the people decide their future, against despotism. So I’ll keep going there. Because a movement of the size of the February 20th movement is rare in Morocco. We want to keep that flame. It signifies many things for the ordinary classes who took part.
Mediapart: But these people do not demonstrate any more today.
A.L.: As militants, we want, out of respect for them, to come out once a month, even in reduced numbers. It’s not that which will change Morocco, given the current size of the movement, but it is a hope.
Mediapart: Could you have achieved more with the February 20th movement? Do you think you could have done better?
A.L.: A movement like that of February 20th cannot do better. If the Left had been united in a programme for radical change, maybe we could have. Unfortunately that was not the case. Some activists raised radical slogans, and others imposed a ceiling, [that of] a parliamentary democracy, notably the PSU [United Socialist Party]. Then there was the decision by [Moroccan Islamist association] Al Adl Wal Ihsane to disengage from the movement.
If we had had united progressive parties, we could have changed a lot of things. The February 20th movement became weakened, it’s true. But one must know that the people in the countryside, in the most far-flung parts of the country, take inspiration from it. They don’t count any more on local authorities to provide them a school, a road, a hospital. People organise themselves and shout their anger in marches. Never has a movement survived four years - all the other movements that we’ve known. We can give them dates: June 20th 1981, March 23rd 1965. We know the beginning of the February 20th movement, but not the end. It already has achievements that the reformist forces were incapable of obtaining. They never obtained a modification of the constitution. Never did a trades union obtain a pay rise in one go of 600 dirhams [per month for public employees, equivalent to about 55 euros] and outside of the budget, never [before] had snap elections been obtained from [protest] pressure.
Mediapart: Proposed new changes to the Moroccan penal code have been published by the justice ministry. A number of pro-democracy activists have denounced it as a repressive move. What is your opinion?
A.L.: It’s not very different to the current code. It is an instrument of repression rather than one of justice. One could take for example article 288, which unions have already been the victim of. It has been readopted and the penalties have been increased. You can be sentenced to two years in prison for having organised a strike. They have also increased the fine from 5,000 dirhams to 20,000 dirhams. We were waiting for parties like the [the ruling] PJD [Justice and Development Party]and the PPS [Party of Progress and Socialism] demand an amendment to this article. We are ready to denounce this project and to resist it, and we’re ready for all kinds of militant action.
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- The French version of this interview can be found here.