Late last month, thousands of people took to the streets of Marrakech,
Morocco, to protest after a fish seller was crushed to death in a garbage truck
trying to retrieve fish confiscated by police. Video circulating online appears
to show Mouhcine Fikri jumping into the back of the truck to rescue his
swordfish, before being crushed to death by its compactor. The protests in
Morocco were called by activists from the February 20 movement, which organized
demonstrations during the Arab unrest of 2011. Fikri’s death drew parallels to
that of Tunisian fruit seller Mohamed Bouazizi in 2010, whose death sparked the
Arab Spring uprisings. We speak with Miriyam Aouragh, a Dutch-Moroccan
anthropologist and democracy activist based in Britain and lecturer at the
University of Westminster in London.
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