Protest leader in Morocco’s Jerada arrested

RABAT, Morocco — A leader of protests that began last December in the northeastern Moroccan town of Jerada was arrested on Saturday and was still being held, the prosecution and a rights group said.

Mustapha Dainane was arrested following a traffic accident at 1:00am on Thursday, according to a statement from the general prosecutor's office in the nearby town of Oujda. The arrest "has no connection with the events in the city of Jerada", it said.

The activist, who gained popularity with spirited speeches during demonstrations in the former coal mining town, remained in detention as of early Sunday, Said Zeroual, a local representative of the Moroccan Association for Human Rights (AMDH), told AFP.

Dainane's usually active Facebook page, which displays a photo of Russian revolutionary Vladimir Lenin as its profile image, was no longer available on Sunday morning.

Activists connected to the grassroots Hirak protest movement replaced their Facebook profile pictures with images protesting Dainane's detention.

The accidental deaths in December of two brothers trapped in a mine shaft, followed by two other deaths under similar circumstances, gave rise to peaceful demonstrations demanding "economic alternatives" for the former coal mining town.

Thousands of people have left the city since Jerada's coal mines, once its economic lifeblood, were shuttered in the late 1990s.

Hundreds of illegal miners risk their lives in closed mine shafts to extract coal, the sale of which is legal thanks to operating permits issued by Moroccan authorities.

An action plan proposed by the government, which includes care for former miners with lung disease and inspections of closed mines, succeeded in briefly calming social unrest. But protests and calls for a general strike have continued, over what many believe to be insufficient government action.