A. Latif Baraka: Heba Press
Yesterday, Friday, August 23, civil and associative actors from the Chtouka-Ait Baha province organized a demonstration on the square adjacent to the headquarters of the Sidi community, denouncing the “forced and unjust” conservation of the lands of the local population.
During this demonstration, at the call of the “Akal Association for the Defense of the Ancestral Lands of Sidi Bibi Ait Amira”, the demonstrators chanted slogans such as “Stand, unwavering, for our rights, fighters”, while demanding an end to what has been committed. They called for “the forced and unjust preservation of ancestral lands” and to “approve and activate their return to their families in accordance with the royal instructions of the king of the country”.
The protesters stressed that “their ancestral lands belong to them and the law guarantees them this,” while calling on the Interior Ministry to respect this matter and allow them to preserve it on its behalf, as well as to respect international conventions on the matter, including Article 17 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
It should be noted that the “Akal Association for the Defense of the Ancestral Lands of Sidi Bibi and Ait Amira” had announced the establishment of this new demonstration on the square adjacent to the headquarters of the Sidi Bibi group, after the demonstration it organized in front of the headquarters of the Chtouka Ait Baha prefecture last week.
According to what the association said in a report, “the forced and unfair reservation of residents’ lands for the benefit of the Ministry of Interior was carried out in flagrant disregard of the 2011 constitutional document, which recognizes the right of residents to own their lands.”
The same association refuted “the Interior Ministry’s claims that these lands are considered communal and dynastic lands, contradicting all logical and factual evidence, including historical records, documents and a series of judicial decisions.”
Furthermore, the association denounced, in a report, what it calls “the double standards policy pursued by the Ministry of the Interior, since it reserved the aforementioned lands in its name, refusing to reserve them in the name of their owners, while it agreed to reserve the lands of Inshadden to their owners in accordance with the decision of the Guardianship Council, knowing that all these lands are located in the same administrative definition and have the same characteristics and specifications, and that they also fall under the same real estate domain and current and historical administrative division.
