{"id":29886,"date":"2016-10-31T02:01:46","date_gmt":"2016-10-31T02:01:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/morocco-protests-death-of-fish-seller-triggers\/"},"modified":"2016-10-31T02:01:42","modified_gmt":"2016-10-31T02:01:42","slug":"morocco-protests-death-of-fish-seller-triggers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/morocco-protests-death-of-fish-seller-triggers\/","title":{"rendered":"Morocco protests: Death of fish seller triggers rare demonstrations"},"content":{"rendered":"

{Thousands of Moroccans have held protests in several towns and cities after a fish seller was crushed to death in a refuse lorry trying to retrieve fish confiscated by police.}<\/p>\n

The death of Mouhcine Fikri in the northern town of Al-Hoceima on Friday drew widespread anger on social media.<\/p>\n

His death drew parallels to that of a Tunisian fruit seller in 2010 which helped spark the Arab Spring uprisings.<\/p>\n

Morocco’s King Mohamed has ordered officials to visit Mr Fikri’s family.
\nThe interior and justice ministries have also pledged to hold an investigation.<\/p>\n

{{‘Everyone feels crushed’}}<\/p>\n

The anti-government protests, on a scale rare in Morocco, were called by activists of the February 20 movement, who organised demonstrations during the Arab Spring in 2011.<\/p>\n

Angry postings on social media referred to “Hogra”, a term for official abuse and injustice.<\/p>\n

“I have never seen such a crowd in the last few years, since 2011 at least,” said Houssin Lmrabet, an activist in the town of Imzouren where a protest followed the funeral of Mr Fikri.<\/p>\n

“Everyone feels crushed by that garbage truck here.”<\/p>\n

Protests were also held in Al-Hoceima, Casablanca and the capital Rabat.<\/p>\n

Police had confiscated and destroyed Mr Fikri’s swordfish because it is not allowed to be fished at this time of the year, according to Moroccan media.<\/p>\n

Video circulating on social media appears to show Mr Fikri jumping into the back of the refuse lorry to retrieve his fish, before being crushed to death by its compactor.<\/p>\n

Interior Minister Mohamed Hassad vowed to hold a speedy investigation into exactly what had happened.<\/p>\n

“No one had the right to treat him like this,” he told the AFP news agency.<\/p>\n

“We cannot accept officials acting in haste, anger or in conditions that do not respect people’s rights.”<\/p>\n

The incident evoked memories of Mohamed Bouazizi, the Tunisian fruit and vegetable seller who doused himself in petrol and set himself alight after officials seized his goods in December 2010.<\/p>\n

Public outrage at the incident led to overthrow of then-president Zine El Abidine Ben Ali and the unrest spread to Egypt, Libya and other countries in the Arab world.<\/p>\n

\"Rabat<\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

{Thousands of Moroccans have held protests in several towns and cities after a fish seller was crushed to death in a refuse lorry trying to retrieve fish confiscated by police.} The death of Mouhcine Fikri in the northern town of Al-Hoceima on Friday drew widespread anger on social media. His death drew parallels to that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[100],"byline":[249],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-29886","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-africa","byline-bbc"],"bylines":[{"id":249,"name":"BBC","slug":"bbc","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":104}],"contributors":[{"id":249,"name":"BBC","slug":"bbc","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":104}],"featured_image":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29886","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29886"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29886\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29886"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29886"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29886"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=29886"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=29886"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}