Moroccan group calls for fast-breaking in public

A group of Moroccan youths launched for the second year an online campaign calling for their right to break their fasting in public during the mornings of Ramadan amid protests against violating one of the main pillars of Islam and claims of a hidden agenda.

Moroccan blogger Naguib Shawki launched a campaign on the social networking website Facebook under the slogan “Fasting or not fasting, we’re all Moroccans.” The campaign calls for allowing Moroccans the right to eat and drink in public if they are not fasting instead of having to do so in secret.

Shawki refuted claims that the campaign has anything against religion or calls for violating Islamic principles.

“We are not encouraging people not to fast or to violate the teachings of Islam or to convert to another religion,” Shawki told Al Arabiya. “We are only defending personal freedoms without inciting sedition.”

Shawki and other members of the campaign called for opening a rational dialogue about the right to break the fast and to do it in public."

“We are not trying to provoke anyone. We are only trying to get rid of society’s control. We want the personal freedom we are deprived of.”

We are not encouraging people not to fast or to violate the teachings of Islam or to convert to another religion

Campaign organizer Naguib Shawki

Hidden agenda

The campaign was met with wide protests on the grounds that it calls for the violation of one of the five pillars of Islam and since Islam is the main and official religion in Morocco; it has to be respected by all its citizens.

Hassan al-Haythami, a journalist from the weekly al-Misbah, argued that organizers of the campaign have a hidden agenda.

“It will not stop at breaking the fast in public,” he told Al Arabiya. “Those people will later call for more serious practices that violate the teachings of Islam. This is a provocative campaign that will definitely be resisted by the Muslim Moroccan society.”

Several groups were formed on Facebook to counter the calls for fast-breaking in public. Members of these groups argue that eating and drinking in public during the day in Ramadan is insensitive to other people who are fasting.

They also pointed out that the Moroccan society turns a blind eye to people who don’t fast as long as they eat and drink inside their homes or at least not in front of fasting people.

Those people will later call for more serious practices that violate the teachings of Islam

Journalist Hassan al-Haythami

However, the campaign wants official acknowledgment of their right to break the fast in public and calls for the cancellation of the law that bans eating and drinking in public during the holy month.

“I don’t see what’s wrong with the law,” said one Moroccan blogger. “In the United States, people are not allowed to drink alcohol in public and are penalized if seen with a can of beer in the street. Americans never objected to that law.”

According to article 222 of the Moroccan Penal Code, public eating or drinking during Ramadan is penalized by one to six months in jail and a fine that ranges between 12 and 120 dirhams (between $1.5 and $12).

The campaign for public fast-breaking started last year in the northwestern city of Mohammedia when a group of youths organized a rally to eat in the street during a Ramadan morning in protest of the law that they said violated their personal freedom. The police dispersed the crowd and the campaign did not garner the support it aimed for.


(Translated from Arabic by Sonia Farid)