HIBAPRESS – Khalil Fezazi
The city of Laayoune is hosting, on Thursday, October 22, 2026, a study day on the topic "Hassani Culture in the Era of Innovation and Digital Transformation: Towards a New Model for Activating Cultural Rights," an initiative by the Regional Human Rights Commission of the Laayoune-Sakia El Hamra region, held at Al Massira Hotel.
The organization of this meeting comes in the context of growing interest in preserving Hassani culture and valuing its linguistic, literary, and artistic heritage, as it is one of the fundamental components of Moroccan cultural identity. This heritage embodies creative expressions, skills, customs, and traditions that reflect the specificity of Sahrawi society and its way of life.
This event falls within a human rights approach that considers the place of culture in the human rights system, particularly the right to participate in cultural life, benefit from its components, and contribute to its development. It is also based on the constitutional provisions that affirm, in Article Five, the preservation of Hassani culture as an integral part of the unified Moroccan cultural identity.
The study day is expected to open discussions on the rapid social, technological, and economic transformations, and the need they impose to rethink ways of engaging with Hassani culture, moving beyond traditional approaches focused on preservation, documentation, and presentation, towards a vision that makes it a living culture capable of developing, renewing itself, and keeping pace with the demands of the era.
This trend highlights the importance of employing modern technologies, digital transformation, and artificial intelligence in valuing the Hassani heritage, expanding its presence and reach, while enabling new generations to invest it in producing contemporary creative forms.
In this context, Hassani culture offers multiple possibilities for developing projects and initiatives in the fields of fashion, design, music, cinema, audiovisual production, publishing, digital games, animation, as well as traditional industries, cultural tourism, and digital products inspired by this civilizational legacy.
The challenge at hand is not limited to protecting cultural heritage and transmitting it to future generations, but extends to creating conditions that allow these generations to reproduce and develop it with innovative tools and methods, ensuring its continuity and ability to interact with current and future transformations.
This meeting re-raises a fundamental question about how to strike a balance between preserving the authenticity of Hassani culture and opening the door to renewing its expressions, with a view to strengthening cultural rights, consolidating the place of this heritage within the national cultural landscape, and leveraging the opportunities of digitization and innovation in its preservation, development, and transmission to future generations.
