Morocco has lodged a formal complaint with UNESCO over an Algerian nomination file on zellige, arguing that the submission misrepresents a craft Morocco considers part of its own heritage, an informed source told Hespress.
According to the report, Morocco, through the Ministry of Youth, Culture and Communication, the State Secretariat in charge of handicrafts and its permanent delegation to UNESCO, asked the U.N. cultural agency to intervene urgently over Algeria’s file, titled in French “L’art d’ornementation architectonique en zellidje, céramique émaillée: savoirs et savoir-faire associés.”
UNESCO’s website lists the Algerian nomination among the files under process for the 2026 cycle and says such files are to be examined by the committee at its session in November or December 2026.
UNESCO says the content of each nomination is the sole responsibility of the submitting state and that publication does not imply any opinion by UNESCO or the committee on historical references or legal status.
Morocco argued that the Algerian file amounted to an attempt to appropriate zellige and cited what it described as legal and technical grounds, including Moroccan registrations linked to “Zellige de Fès” and references to protected Moroccan handicraft know how.
A 2021 World Intellectual Property Organization presentation by a Moroccan official refers to technical quality specifications for “Zellige de Fès” as part of Morocco’s handicraft protection framework.
The Moroccan complaint, also objected to Algeria’s use of the spelling “Zellidje,” saying it was a semantic maneuver to sidestep the historically established term “Zellige.” Reuters could not independently verify the filing with UNESCO from public Moroccan government statements available on Thursday. UNESCO had not publicly responded to the reported complaint.
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