Yearbook 2010
Morocco. According to COUNTRYAAH, Morocco has a population of 36.03 million (2018). 41 people were killed on February 20 when a minaret collapsed and fell on hundreds of prayers during Friday prayers at the Bab El Baradyine Mosque in the city of Meknès. After the accident, a review was made of 19,000 of the country’s nearly 50,000 mosques, with over 500 being sentenced as dangerous as having to be demolished. The government has allocated the equivalent of US $ 325 million to build new mosques in the old ones. The accident-hit mosque in Meknès was among those to be demolished. Meknès is classified as a World Heritage site according to the UN agency UNESCO.
Twenty Christians who worked in an orphanage near the city of Ain Leuh in the Atlas Mountains were expelled in February accused of engaging in illegal missionary activities. Communications Minister Khalid Naciri said Christians were welcome to practice their faith but not to mission, a ban he said also included Muslim missions.
In May 2005, a major uprising began in Western Sahara targeting the Moroccan government. The uprising was called by the activists of the uprising as the Sahara Intifada. According to softwareleverage, Morocco violently cracked down on the uprising and local human rights activists were arrested and subjected to torture in a number of cases. The Spanish Parliament tried several times to send investigative commissions to the country, but they were not allowed by the Moroccan authorities.
In August 2005, Polisario released its last Moroccan prisoners of war. A number of the 404 released prisoners had spent more than 20 years in captivity in Polisario camps in Algeria.
- Abbreviation Finder: Check to see how the two letter abbreviation of MO stands for the country of Morocco in geography.
A truth commission – the first in the Arab world – concluded after 2 years of investigations in December 2005 that 592 people had been executed under King Hassan II’s regime in 1956-99.
The Moroccan government expected foreign investment beetles to double in 2006. In order to achieve the 7% economic growth the government set targets, investments of at least 4.2 billion kroner were required. US $. This was an amount 5 times greater than the annual average for the previous 10 years.
In April 2006, Mohamed VI pardoned 48 Sahrawi activists who had been arrested in 2005 for demanding Western Sahara independence, but at the same time the king rejected UN mediation in the conflict. This was particularly true of UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan’s proposal for a unity government and to conduct a referendum on the issue within 5 years.
On the 8th anniversary of his ascension, Mohamed VI declared in July 2007 that Morocco was ready to negotiate on the Sahara, “but only on autonomy, and nothing but autonomy”, and only within the “indivisible sovereignty of the kingdom”. A majority in the United States Congress continues to unconditionally support the Moroccan occupation.
The September 2007 parliamentary election was won by the Conservative Monarchist Independence Party with 10.7% of the vote. Another lot was larger in percentage terms, but got fewer seats. However, confidence in the king’s parliamentary system was limited. Voting was 37%. Independent Party leader Abbas El Fassi was appointed prime minister.
As part of the EU’s closer relations with colonial regimes and repressive states, in 2008 Morocco was granted special status in trade and development assistance. In 2009, the country received DKK 205 million. Euro in aid from the EU. In March 2010, Morocco and the EU held a summit confirming the EU’s continued support for Morocco’s occupation of Western Sahara. Morocco plays an important role for the EU as a frontier arm for Africa and as a supplier of raw materials and fishing rights. The EU therefore ignores the massive human rights violations in the country and its occupation of Western Sahara.