Moroccan human rights activists protested Tuesday against their citizens’ “refusal” of obtaining entry visas to European countries, especially France, denouncing “offensive” and “racist” policies in a demonstration in front of the European Union mission in Rabat.
“We have come to express our anger and protest at the insults, arrogance and racism in response to our citizens’ requests for visas to enter the European Union,” Aziz Ghali, head of the Moroccan Human Rights Association, said during the demonstration.
He added that these countries “insist on issuing visas to only a limited number, even if the requests meet all the conditions.”
Some 50 activists from the Moroccan Human Rights Association and the Moroccan Human Rights League took part in this symbolic demonstration.
In particular, the denial of a visa to France has recently drawn widespread criticism in Morocco, which has led to a cooling of diplomatic relations between the two countries, which have historically enjoyed strong relations.
In September 2021, the French government decided to halve the number of visas issued to Morocco and Algeria, citing the two countries’ refusal to accept back illegal migrants whom Paris wants to deport.
Then Rabat called this decision “unjustified.” While intellectuals have warned in recent discussions about this, that it “punishes” the middle classes of Moroccan society, who are more closely aligned with France than others.
“We refuse to use the rights and interests of citizens as a map to settle political scores between some European countries and the Moroccan state,” Khadija Riyadi, an activist with the Moroccan Human Rights Association, said during a protest on Tuesday, noting that the human rights organization has received several complaints about this.
At the same time, Gali pointed out that “the consulates of the countries concerned do not even bother to justify the refusal to issue a visa and do not return the costs of files of rejected applications.”
The demonstrators called on European Union countries to pursue policies that “respect the right to freedom of movement”, deeming the banners “a racist, discriminatory act” and “colonial contempt” by the visa ban.
On the other hand, French diplomatic sources explained that “the number of visa denials promoted in some Moroccan media and social networks is far from reality.”
She stressed that “the number of visas issued to Moroccan students in France during the (period) of entering universities this year is equal to the number of visas issued last year.”
