By Yossi Schwartz, Internationalist Socialist League (RCIT Section in Israel/Occupied Palestine), 2 October 2025

On Saturday, a vast, peaceful mass movement, the Z-212 generation, took to the streets in many cities in Morocco, a country with 30 million people. They protested against the government's decision to build an expensive football stadium for the 2030 FIFA World Cup instead of investing the money in healthcare and creating jobs.

The Moroccan government serves the interests of imperialism by maintaining strategic alliances with the U.S. and EU, playing a key role in regional border control to prevent migration flows to Europe, and opening the country to foreign exploitation through agreements with multinationals. This role also includes maintaining close ties with Israel and perpetuating economic policies that benefit foreign capital, which undermine the sovereignty of the country and other neighbouring countries and attack the living standard of the Moroccan working class.

Morocco's national unemployment rate stood at 12.8% in the second quarter of 2025. Youth and graduate unemployment rates are particularly high at 35.8%.

The protesters demand improved medical and educational services, as well as better employment opportunities. Since last Saturday, people demonstrate every day. The government responded by shooting and killing so far three young people.

According to Amnesty International, the corrupt government continues to repress dissent and target journalists, activists, and government critics through prosecution and surveillance, despite a royal pardon for thousands of prisoners, including journalists and human rights defenders. Morocco’s laws and practices continued to uphold gender inequality and criminalize same-sex sexual relations between consenting adults. Authorities failed to meet their obligations to ensure accessible, affordable, and good-quality sexual and reproductive health services for women and girls, including abortion. The population opposed a draft Code of Penal Procedure that would hinder anti-corruption efforts. Authorities failed to effectively investigate the deadly June 2022 crackdown on migrants and refugees. Authorities arbitrarily arrested and forcibly relocated refugees, asylum seekers, and migrants to remote regions, putting their safety and lives at risk. Morocco faced a severe drought induced by climate change, and the authorities’ response to the September 2023 earthquake was criticized as inadequate.

"Stadiums are here, but where are the hospitals?" is a popular chant among the Gen Z protesters which was heard in the demonstrations time and again.

This is a spontaneous movement of youth from across classes that, at this stage, raises demands for reform of the system.

According to local media, the demonstrations spread from Rabat, the capital city, to the southern cities of Tiznit, Inzegane, and Aït Amira, as well as eastern Oujda and Temara. Participants threw stones when the brutal police tried to disperse the gatherings.

The Moroccan Association for Human Rights (AMDH) said there was physical pressure against protesters and arbitrary arrests. The Ministry of the Interior alleged, and there is no reason to believe it, injuries to 263 security personnel and 23 civilians, as well as the detention of at least 409 people for the use of knives, Molotov cocktails, and stones.

Following these events, the authorities tightened control and implemented additional police measures to maintain their rotten rule. This is the time for the working class to enter the arena to bring down the government, extend the struggle, and turn it into a new wave of the Arab revolution.

Nationalization of the capitalist companies, especially the imperialist ones, under workers' control!

End the relations with the Zionist monster!

For a government of workers and poor peasants!

Free education at all levels!

Free and good healthcare!

Forward to the Arab revolution!