Anti-riot police secure Rabat as thousands march for more reforms

Rabat: Thousands of Moroccans staged protests on Sunday, the latest in a series of peaceful demonstrations by a youth-led movement to demand reforms that go beyond constitutional changes crafted by the palace.

Anti-riot police deployed in the centre of Rabat to prevent up to 2,000 sympathisers of the February 20 opposition movement from clashing with those in favour of the constitutional reforms.

Inspired by uprisings that ousted leaders in Tunisia and Egypt, the movement has been holding regular protests for months to demand a parliamentary monarchy and that officials they accuse of graft be brought to justice.

Witnesses said a protest in Casablanca drew close to 8,000 with a few hundred in a counter-protest under the watch of a heavy police deployment. Similar protests took place in other cities such as Oujda and Agadir.

"No to a ruler who plunders public funds," read a placard carried by February 20 protesters in Rabat. "Wherever you go, you find corruption, you killed us with corruption," they chanted.

The counter-protesters forced February 20 protesters to change the route of their march twice and threw eggs at them.

"Jews, traitors, donkeys," they yelled, pointing to February 20 protesters and, "the people want traitors to be executed".

Named after the date of its first protest, the movement is a leaderless and loose national network that has managed to cobble together an unlikely alliance of Islamists and secular leftists.

Widespread support

The majority of Moroccans revere the king and the protest movement has failed to gather the momentum or widespread support that toppled leaders in Egypt and Tunisia.

King Mohammad is supposed to hand over some of his powers to elected officials under the reform which still keeps him at the centre of every strategic decision.

The move is viewed in other Arab monarchies as a test case for whether reform can hold back the wave of "Arab Spring" uprisings sweeping the region.