Government rejects hate campaigns against migrants

Morocco, a leading country in terms of welcoming and integrating immigrants, has broken with all forms of hatred and discrimination against them, declared government spokesperson Mustapha Baitas at a press conference after the discrimination on social networks triggered after the words of Tunisian President Kais Saied. Internet users have been able to find the origin of this racist campaign in Morocco.

A wave of hatred has spread on social networks in comments, images or videos shared and groups on Facebook presenting themselves as against migrants in Morocco, following the racist remarks of Tunisian President Kais Saied who rose against illegal immigration of nationals from sub-Saharan African countries.

Kais Saied called for “urgent action” against migrants from sub-Saharan African countries, saying their presence in Tunisia was a source of “violence, crimes and unacceptable acts”.

He said that this phenomenon was a “criminal enterprise hatched at the dawn of this century to change the demographic composition of Tunisia”, in order to transform it into an “African only” country and blur its “Arab-Muslim” character.

The racist remarks of the Tunisian president quickly made the rounds of the world and in particular in the neighboring countries, in Algeria and Morocco, where a surge of racist comments was observed this week on social networks, enough to ask serious questions especially that sub-Saharan nationals have long been very well integrated into Moroccan society.

Asked by journalists about these hateful comments on social networks, the government spokesperson reacted by recalling that Morocco is a leading country in terms of welcoming and integrating immigrants, has broken with all forms of racial hatred and discrimination in accordance with the provisions of the Constitution and ratified international conventions, underlined.

Morocco rejects racial discrimination and the dissemination of hatred by force from the Constitution and all the international conventions to which it is a signatory, he said, stressing that the kingdom has made a break with these practices, on the official plan and from the point of view of values ​​and principles.

In addition, Morocco has pioneering experience in the integration of immigrants, he said, recalling that this was the subject of a major royal initiative, launched by King Mohammed VI. This initiative demonstrated how Morocco has transformed itself from a country of transit into one of stay, noted the spokesperson.

To preserve this open Morocco, based on respect for others, Mr. Baitas insisted on the support of all components of society, including political parties, associations and social establishments.

Faced with this unprecedented situation in Morocco, and the number of hateful comments found on social network pages shared by fake accounts, several Internet users have conducted an investigation to find out the origin of these comments.

Analysts and publications on Twitter shared the result of their research which found that this campaign launched on Moroccan pages and elsewhere, targeted the Moroccan public and would be directed from Algeria to sow discord in Morocco, provoke hatred and encourage racism.

A racist group on Facebook called “Moroccans against the installation of sub-Saharan Africans” gathering 44,000 users, has been detected as located in Algeria.

On the options on social network, we can see that the name of the group has been changed recently and that its initial name was “Khawa khawa” (brothers brothers), an expression used by Algerians and Moroccans to say that they remain united despite the political tensions between the two countries.

“It seems that the largest group xenophobic At Morocco is directed from theAlgeria Algerians are trying to smear the image of the Kingdom by Africa by passing racist messages on behalf of Moroccans”, one can read on Twitter on one of the examples noted by Internet users.