Morocco Islamists Harassed by Security Services

Morocco Islamists Harassed by Security Services

Islamists in Morocco are facing harassments after the Interior Minister ordered security services to crack down on the Justice and Charity group. Accordingly, the security services have been raiding all the group”s activities, arresting some of its members on various charges.
 
Nadia Yassine, daughter of the leader of the Justice and Charity group, Abdul Salam Yassine, is standing trial in a part of these harassments. Her trial has been adjourned the sixth time in a row last Tuesday.
 
Nadia Yassine is standing trial along with journalist Abdul Aziz Koukas and another journalist working for “Al-Osboiya AlJadida” newspaper on charge of “insulting sanctuaries and violating public order” because of statements that Nadia gave it to the newspaper .
 
This trial comes upon a complaint filed by the prosecution against Nadia Yassine (41 years) after statements she gave in a interview in which she said she prefers the the republican system to the royal system. Nadia pointed out later that she gave her personal view as a cultured person, not for inciting people to support the republican system.
 
Even the Moroccan Justice and Development Party (PJD) has had its share in these crackdowns. A PJD regional official in the city of Ibn Solaiman , neighboring Rabat , was arrested because of his participation in a solidarity vigil to support the Palestinian people, and was accused of attacking four policemen then he was released after the trial .
 
The party, in turn, denounced “the unjust method of fabricating charges against its regional official”, describing this incident as “a retreat to the authorities” unjust practices”.
 
The Moroccan authorities have even blocked the PJd”s activities in various cities and members of the PJd”s general secretariat topped by the Secretary-General Saaduddin Al Othmani were scheduled to take part in them, making the latter send a protest message to the Interior Minister demanding him to probe into the incidents and not to allow it repeated in the future.
 
In his analysis to the crisis between the government and Islamists, Abdul Ali Hami Al Din, a professor of political sciences in Tangier university, said the government wants to isolate Islamists so as not to capitalize on the state of tension and rage over the 2007 elections and the current price hike.
 
Mohamed Darif, a professor of political science in Al Hassan II university, saw that there is a change in the core of the conflict between the government and Islamists in Morocco, as it has changed from a crisis of existence to the government”s laying suspicions on the legal status of the group.