Khaberni - The "Generation Z 212" movement called today, Friday, to demonstrate for the seventh consecutive day in several Moroccan cities, protesting against corruption and the deterioration of health and educational services.
The movement, which does not disclose the identity of its members, published on Discord a call to demonstrate in 14 cities, "in an organized and specified framework" between six and nine in the evening (17:00-20:00 GMT).
After several cities witnessed violent acts and night clashes on Tuesday and Wednesday that resulted in the deaths of 3 people, activists of "Generation Z" demonstrated peacefully in different parts of the Moroccan kingdom on Thursday.
This was the second time that the authorities allowed demonstrations, which attracted gatherings of dozens to hundreds of youths.
The movement emphasized today, Friday, the commitment to "the announced locations" and "to maintain discipline and responsibility to preserve the peaceful nature of our actions," and also called on participants to wear black clothes "in mourning for the injured and the dead" during the acts of violence.
Dead and Injured
The authorities announced that 3 people were killed by security forces gunfire on Wednesday night while they were trying to storm a gendarmerie barracks in the south of the kingdom during unprecedented acts of violence that followed calls for demonstrations, in cities that were not among the locations the movement had called for.
More than 350 people were injured, most of them security forces, according to the Ministry of the Interior.
The movement said in a statement addressed to King Mohammed VI on Thursday evening, "We demand the dismissal of the current government for its failure to protect the constitutional rights of Moroccans and to respond to their social demands," but it returned on Friday afternoon to clarify that it would later publish a "formal final version" of its demands.
The Moroccan government yesterday expressed its readiness to dialogue with the movement, and to move the discussion from the virtual world to a dialogue "within institutions."
The name of the movement combines "Generation Z," the age group to which its members belong who were born at the end of the last decade of the last century and the beginning of the first decade of the current century, and the number 212, which is the international telephone dialing code for Morocco.
Its protests began last Saturday, but the authorities banned them, and were formed on Discord following demonstrations in the city of Agadir in the south of the kingdom in mid-September following the death of 8 pregnant women in the local general hospital.
