Morocco: Activists Break Fast in Public, Receive Punishment

RABAT - A group of six young Moroccans will be brought to justice for "attempt of incitement to break the fast in public" during Ramadan, said on Monday security source.

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This decision was taken after these people, including a journalist, had tried to organize Sunday afternoon a rally in Mohammedia (80 km south of Rabat) to "break publicly" fasting to protest against a "law punishing non-observance of fasting during Ramadan in Morocco, "the same source added.

The Moroccan official agency MAP said on Monday that local authorities "have managed Sunday to defeat an attempted rally that was to be followed by a public rupture of fasting for the repeal of a penal code".

Moroccan newspapers have confirmed in their Tuesday editions this failed attempt to rally the "non-fasters" in Mohammedia.

This is the first time in Morocco that a group of "non-fasters" appears in public to claim the right not to practice Ramadan, observers note.

Mohammedia protesters want the abolishment of a Moroccan law that "punishes every Muslim openly breaking the fast of Ramadan, before the iftar meal which marks the end of the day.

This attempt to break fast in public has been initiated by the Movement for alternative defense of individual liberties ", an association hitherto unknown to authorities.

The Council of Ulema (theologians) of Mohammedia, for his part denounced the action describing its authors as "agitators".

It is an "abhorrent act that defies the teachings of God and of His prophet with everything it implies as serious sanction," say the theologians in a statement.

During the month of Ramadan, Muslim believers are called to abstain from drinking, eating, smoking and sexual intercourse from sunrise to sunset.