RABAT, 26 May 2003 — Tens of thousands of people took to the streets of Casablanca yesterday to demonstrate against terrorism, just over a week after the suicide bombings that left 43 dead in Morocco’s largest city.
The government-condoned protest began with a march which set out from the Farah hotel, one of the targets of the bombings.
Moroccan Human Rights Minister Mohamed Aujjar had said on Saturday that the demonstration would send a “message of the Moroccan people’s anger against terrorism and the criminal attacks of May 16.”
Aujjar said the government was throwing its weight behind the protest, and welcomed the Moroccan people’s “spontaneous reaction” to the attacks.
Moroccan civic groups had originally called yesterday’s demonstration to protest not only against the bombings, but also against the government’s hand in generating the economic and social conditions they say helped to foment them.
