A teacher in Morocco who called for a group of Belgian youth volunteers to be beheaded for wearing shorts has been arrested by the Moroccan authorities and charged with publishing a hate message on Facebook, the country’s state security said.
The young volunteers, mostly young women, were taking part in a summer construction camp in the south of Morocco. The man, aged 26 and living in the north of the country, posted the message after seeing a video report on TV showing the group of volunteers laying a path beneath a blazing sun.
The message was presumably intended to recall the case of two Scandinavian tourists murdered in 2018 by radical Moroccan Muslims claiming to be affiliated with Islamic State. The state security agency DGSN said he had been arrested for incitement to commit terrorist acts.
Later a member of the Moroccan parliament Ali El Asn, a member of the Islamic party PJD, posted another message on Facebook asking “when did Europeans start carrying out works dressed in bathing costumes?” When his message provoked the expected response from moderates, he accused them of “lay terrorism”.
Elsewhere, the work of the young people shown in the video report has garnered praise from those who welcome them for “coming to carry out works in the place of local politicians”. The group is taking part in a programme organised by the non-profit Bouworde, which was due to meet today to decide whether their programme needs to be modified.
“Thirty-five young people are due to leave next weekend for the same region, and their parents have expressed to us their concern,” a spokesperson for Bouworde said. The group is made up of young people aged 15 to 18, working in the village of Adar in the region of Taroudant. Bouworde has been active in the region for 15 years, the spokesperson told La Libre, and in the village for ten. The man arrested lives 800km away.
Alan Hope
The Brussels Times
