Since Saturday, June 7 early in the morning, a fierce repression has fallen on the citizens of the town of Sidi Ifni Aït Baamran, in the South of Morocco and against its youth that, fed by false promises of employment and economic advancement of the region, have been blocking the port for the last week. The police and rapid intervention forces have been displaced by thousands from several regions of Morocco. Police forces have surrounded the city, carried out raids on homes, arrested and taken hostage the families of militants, beating and even threatening rape. Bombs tear gas and rubber bullets were used, and helicopters were deployed to search for the demonstrators in the mountains near the city

The arrests were numbered in the hundreds, there are dozens of wounded, and media sources and residents of the city speak of deaths.

The crackdown comes as from May 30, a week earlier, youth of the city had organized the blockade of access to the port to demand their right to employment, and their legitimate claims for which they are fighting since 2005:

 Creation of the prefecture Sidi Ifni Aït Baamrane.

 Creation of jobs for youth in the region.

 Completion of the work of the port.

 Completion of construction of the tourist road Ifni-Tantan.

 Free medical services, while equipping infrastructure and recruiting medical personnel.

Moroccan government once again demonstrates its contempt for popular demands, preferring repressive logics to breack down the struggles of peoples rather than provide answers to their demands. We, the members of the National Secretariat of ATTAC Morocco, support all the legitimate struggles of people of Sidi ifni Aït Baamrane and:

 Denounce the barbaric intervention against youth in this militant city, who has spared neither the children nor the women nor the elderly.

 claim for the withdrawal of repressive forces from other regions of Morocco, and end the blockade imposed to the media and the city, and access to national and international public opinion to the whole truth about what occurred past and continues to happen.

 Claim the immediate release of all persons arrested and the cessation of prosecutions against members of the local secretariat of Ifni Aït Baamrane, as well as against the militants of the section of Sidi Ifni, of the National Association of graduated unemployed persons and of ATTAC Morocco.

 Claim for the immediate cessation of stalking youth continued in the mountains since the dawn of Saturday, June 7, and the judgement or any prosecution against them.

 Keep the Moroccan State responsible for any physical attack against our ATTAC Morocco activists the general secretary of ATTAC Ifni, Brahim Bara, and Khalid Bouchra, Boumrah Brahim, Keddad and Fatima Khalil Rifi.

 call all militant organizations to organize a caravan of solidarity with the city of Sidi Ifni Aït Baamrane .

 call all militant organizations to create a commission to investigate the events, independent of any official body. We should not wait 20 years, as in Nador, to reveal the truth.

On June 8, 2008
National Secretariat