Families take over state-owned land incited by outlawed Islamist group Tangier – Lahoucin Idressi Informed sources from Tangiers, North of Morocco, told ‘Arabstoday’ that hundreds of Moroccan families arrived took over stand-owned land in order to construct houses for themselves; an illegal act which led to the intervention of the public forces and the army. The security intervention against the masses almost turned violent similar to that of Gdeim Izik camp in November 2010, in el-Ayun, the largest city in the Western Sahara.
Sources told ‘Arabstoday’ that the takeover of hundreds of families took place in four districts, namely Mars 1, Mars2, Zaytuna, and Ain Ghazi. Occupiers began to set up “nests” to live in, locally called “Bararik”, which are small houses built of boards of tin, wood, and plastic, to be later replaced by solid cement buildings. In one of those districts, some started to immediately dig the foundation for building houses, without permits or deeds the land. The source spoke to a ten year old child from these families who referred to the land as his and that he would build on it.
The building and protests only stopped when security forces intervened, assisted by the Moroccan army.
Sources told ‘Arabstoday’ that these families were incited by Al-Adl wal Ihsane, the almost outlawed Islamist association – which played a major role in the February 20 protests before its withdrawal, prior to appointing PJD’s Benkirane as Premier to the new government. Sources speculated that the Tangiers incidents were incited to create trouble for the new government.
It is worth mentioning that similar incidents broke out in other places, such as the protests of the unemployed in al-Hoceima and Nador. In addition to the 4-day occupation of BA graduates in Rabat to the roof of one of the buildings belonging to the Ministry of Education, calling for their right to governmental employment. PM Benkirane visited the graduates and conversed with them, however, they are still stationed in the same place.