Since Saturday, June 7 early in the morning,a fierce repression has fallen on the citizens
of the town of Sidi Ifni Aït Baamran, in the South of Morocco and against its
youth that, fed by false promises of employment and economic advancement of the
region, have been blocking the port for the last week. The police and rapid
intervention forces have been displaced by
thousands from several regions of Morocco. Police forces have
surrounded the city, carried out raids on homes, arrested and taken hostage the
families of militants, beating and even
threatening rape. Bombs tear gas and rubber bullets were used, and helicopters
were deployed to search for the demonstrators in the mountains near the city .. The arrests
were numbered in the hundreds, there are dozens of wounded, and media sources
and residents of the city speak of deaths.
The crackdown comes as from May 30,
a week earlier, youth of the city had organized the
blockade of access to the port to demand their right to employment, and their
legitimate claims for which they are fighting since 2005:
– Creation of the prefecture Sidi Ifni Aït Baamrane.
– Creation of jobs for youth in the region.
– Completion of the work of the port.
– Completion of construction of the tourist road Ifni-Tantan.
– Free medical services, while equipping infrastructure and recruiting medical
personnel.
Moroccan government once again demonstrates its contempt for popular demands,
preferring repressive logics to breack down the struggles of peoples rather
than provide answers to their demands. We, the members of the National
Secretariat of ATTAC Morocco, support all the legitimate struggles of people of
Sidi ifni Aït Baamrane and:
– Dénounce the barbaric
intervention against youth in this militant city, who has spared neither the
children nor the women nor the elderly.
– Claim for the withdrawal of repressive forces from other regions of Morocco, and
end the blockade imposed to the media and the city, and access to national and
international public opinion to the whole truth about what occurred past and
continues to happen ..
– Claim the immediate release of all persons arrested and the cessation of
prosecutions against members of the local secretariat of Ifni Aït Baamrane, as
well as against the militants of the section of Sidi Ifni, of the National
Association of graduated unemployed persons and of ’ATTAC Morocco.
– Claim for the immediate cessation of stalking youth continued in the
mountains since the dawn of Saturday, June 7, and the judgement or any
prosecution against them.
– Keep the Moroccan State responsible for any
physical attack against our ATTAC
Morocco activists the general secretary of ATTAC Ifni, Brahim Bara, and
Khalid Bouchra, Boumrah Brahim, Keddad and Fatima Khalil Rifi.
– Call all militant organizations to organize a caravan of solidarity with the
city of Sidi Ifni Aït Baamrane.
– Call all militant organizations to create a commission to investigate the
events, independent of any official body. We should not wait 20 years, as in
Nador, to reveal the truth.
On June 8, 2008
Attac Morocco, National Secretariat