The United States Department of State has recently issued its International Religious Freedom Report 2022, in which it extolled the Moroccan King Mohammed VI’s efforts to protect Jewish history and spur harmony and tolerance in Morocco; however it remained critical over other aspects.
The US report, presented by Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Ambassador-at-Large for Religious Freedom Rashad Hussain, reported that Jews have a special statute in Morocco due to their historical existence in the country before the Islamic era. The report mentioned the founding of several Jewish councils and associations to preserve the Hebraic cultural and religious legacy in Morocco, ensuring the management of the day-to-day affairs of the community’s members.
The document also recalled that the King launched several restoration programs to preserve and revamp synagogues across the country.
The report highlighted the existence of religious diversity in the Kingdom, where Sunni Muslims are coexisting with 1,000 to 2,000 Shiite Muslims, 3,500 Jews, and 25,000 Christians.
Under the constitution, the country is a “sovereign Muslim state” and Islam is its official religion. The freedom of faith is guaranteed by the fundamental law which also acknowledges the Jewish community as a crucial component of the Moroccan society.
All public and private educational institutions, with the exception of private Jewish schools, are required by law to teach Sunni Islam in accordance with the precepts of the Maliki-Ashari school of Islamic jurisprudence. Foreign schools established in Morocco have the option of incorporating or excluding Islamic religious education from their curricula.
The Ministry of Islamic Affairs continues monitoring the content of sermons in mosques (Khutba), Islamic religious education, and the transmission of Islamic religious material through broadcast media in order to prevent violent extremism.
The report noted that even though 44 registered, foreign-resident Christian churches are allowed and visitors attend religious services without restriction, authorities restrict Christian marriage and funeral services.
The citizens who have converted to Christianity claim to have experienced social pressure from Muslim families and friends to go back to Islam and give up their Christian faith.
Regarding Jewish citizens, they say they freely attend religious services and ceremonies, and visit religious sites. In this way, the number of tourists visiting Jewish religious sites is on the rise.
The report cited, as an example of transgression, the case of Fatima Karim, a blogger, who was convicted to two years in jail and fined 50,000 dirhams ($4,800) by the Oued-Zem trial court last August for writing satirical posts regarding Quranic verses. The blogger herself apologized when she came to realize the unconstitutionality of her acts.
The report emphasized that 61 people were either legally accused or found guilty of illegal behaviors during the holy month of Ramadan.
Article 222 of the Moroccan Penal Code prescribes a prison sentence for all those who openly and publicly abstain from fasting during the month of Ramadan. It is worth noting that deviant behaviors are punishable by the law only when done in public to draw attention or spread a specific message, the aim being to protect the beliefs and feelings of the general public, and safeguard the unity of the Islamic Ummah.
When the said arrests were criticized by human rights advocates, a police spokesperson stated that the people who had been detained had been treated “with dignity and respect” and that “the exercise of one’s personal freedoms” (publicly eating in Ramadan during the fasting hours) “should never be at the expense of others’ freedoms” (to observe the fast).