Each year, Ramadan comes with a recurrent controversy and a heated debate about individual freedoms in Morocco.
Morocco’s penal code criminalizes publicly eating or drinking during Ramadan fasting hours. It states, in article 222 that, “a person commonly known to be Muslim who violates the fast in a public place during Ramadan, without having one of the justifications allowed by Islam, shall be punished by one to six months of prison and a fine of 12 to 120 Moroccan Dirhams.”
Several groups on social media as well as many civil rights activists expressed their outrage regarding this article, including the Moroccan Outlaws movement, saying that the “article is dating from the era of the French protectorate.”
Even if they are Moroccan nationals, these groups vow to openly eat in public and want their rights to be “legitimized”; in order to build a new mindset about fasting during Ramadan as well as ensuring the respect of non-Muslim practices equally to Muslim ones.
Under Morocco’s constitution, Islam is the country’s state religion. However, the constitution also guarantees in Article 3 all citizens have “the right to freely practice their religion.”
Many are the stories about people who had been arrested or beaten up during Ramadan, for “eating publicly and not respecting the sacred month.”
In 2014 for example, a dozen young people were arrested and some sentenced to jail for refusing to fast in Morocco.
The debate over drinking and eating during Ramadan opens up every year; as many non-fasters consider criminalizing eating as a hindrance to personal freedoms guaranteed by Article 3 of the Moroccan Constitution.
On the other hand, not all Moroccans are Muslim. Data suggest that Morocco was home to at least 200,000 Jews, according to the Jewish Agency. Moreover, Moroccan Christians’ number amounts between 2,000 and 25,000.
Nevertheless, eating during Ramadan is mostly seen as a provocation to Muslims, and “people are free to practice Ramadan or not, but that if they want to eat, they should do so in private.”
add your comment
Terms of publication : Not to offend the writer, people, sacred things, or attack religions or the divine self, and refrain from racist incitement and insults.