Is social media driving reform in the Arab world?

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Thousands march in Morocco

February 21, 2011 -- Massive protests across Morocco on Sunday (February 20th) left five people dead and scores wounded. Despite the casualties, the protests "took place in a peaceful atmosphere, marked by serenity and discipline", Interior Minister Taieb Cherkaoui told reporters on Monday. The burnt bodies were found in an Al Hoceima bank set on fire by "trouble-makers", Cherkaoui said. The protests were organised by youth-led February 20 Movement, which used Facebook to mobilise participants. According to the group, more than 240,000 took part in the protests nation-wide, while the government claimed that 37,000 people took to the streets. Marches took place in Rabat, Casablanca, Marrakech, Agadir, Kenitra, El Jadida, Al Hoceima and other cities. People carried banners, reading "United against corruption", "The people want a new constitution", "The people want the government to step down", "End the rentier economy" and "People have a right to housing, care and work".

In Rabat, demonstrators marched to the parliament from Bab El Had Square. To control the number of participants, the security forces maintained a discrete presence along the main thoroughfares, with trains only running from 11am, and buses virtually absent from the streets in the morning. Participants included Justice and Development Party leader Mustapha Ramid, Socialist Union of Popular Forces (USFP) members Hassan Tariq and Abdelhadi Khariate and MP Miloud Chaâbi. Members of other political parties and human rights groups, including the Moroccan Human Rights Association, also showed up. "Our demands, among other things, concern the formation of a government of national salvation, the introduction of a new constitution, and the issue of corruption being opened up to scrutiny," El Fayek Mohamed, from a left-leaning democratic alliance, said. Members of banned Al Adl Wal Ihsane (Justice and Charity) party called for the release of political prisoners, with slogans and banners showing pictures of the detainees from the association.

The protest organisers feared that different political forces would try to sabotage the march. For his part, the February 20 movement member, Hassan Akrouide, told Magharebia that it was his group leading the demonstration, while "others" are just coming along to lend support. On the eve of the march, the movement issued a call for cancelling the demonstration because of "attempts from religious groups and the radical left to exploit international events and steer this demonstration towards battles over beliefs and ideologies instead of uniting around the needs of Moroccan society for peaceful reform for stability and coexistence". "All we hear from the people who run the country are slogans, and yet nothing happens on the ground," hairdresser Mohamed Houdali, 30, told Magharebia.

In the run-up to the rally, apprehension was building up in Morocco, as a number of political parties published statements, calling on people to ignore the march. For his part, government spokesman and Communications Minister Khaled Naciri tried to calm the situation, saying that the Moroccan government was "listening to the pulse of society". On February 15th, he said that the demands coming from the February 20 movement were nothing new and that the government had been looking into the problems of corruption and poverty for a long time. Finance Minister Salaheddine Mezouar said at a Saturday meeting with young people from his party that "the fact that young Moroccans have been expressing themselves on Facebook is a good thing, but there are groups who have been riding this natural and healthy wave of expression, using it to settle old scores and to carry out plans which will only serve to harm the stability of the country and stifle democratic development."