Morocco’s Repression Deepens: Regime Bans Eid Sacrifice, Blocks Rural Travel, While King Delays Prayer to 11 a.m. Saturday in Tetouan

Title: Morocco’s Repression Deepens: Regime Bans Eid Sacrifice, Blocks Rural Travel, While King Delays Prayer to 11 a.m. Saturday in Tetouan

✍️ BY: Dr. Hana Saada

As the Arab world celebrates Eid al-Adha with faith and freedom, Morocco’s monarchy imposes sweeping restrictions—confiscating sacrificial animals, silencing religious rites, and turning a sacred holiday into a stage for authoritarian control

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Algiers, Algeria | June 6th, 2025 — As millions of Muslims across the Arab world came together on Friday to mark Eid al-Adha with devotion, joy, and the sacred tradition of animal sacrifice, the Moroccan regime led by King Mohammed VI chose a starkly different path—marked by suppression, fear, and systemic violations of religious freedoms.

In a move that has sparked widespread indignation, Moroccan authorities have enforced a sweeping ban on the traditional Qurbani (sacrifice), deploying security forces to block citizens’ travel to rural areas, confiscate sacrificial animals, and impose harsh penalties on those attempting to observe the rite. This crackdown has especially targeted families hoping to conduct the sacrifice away from government surveillance, in the relative privacy of the countryside.

In a symbolic but no less controversial gesture, King Mohammed VI postponed the performance of Eid prayers to Saturday, diverging from the entire Arab and Islamic world. The monarch is expected to lead the prayer at 11 a.m. at the Hassan II Mosque in the northern city of Tetouan—an unusual delay that many see as further distancing the regime from the religious and emotional pulse of its people.

Eyewitness accounts from across the kingdom have described long queues, road checkpoints, and scenes of anguish as Moroccan citizens were forcibly separated from their sacrificial animals. In some areas, security forces reportedly raided homes, confiscated sheep, and detained individuals, all under the guise of maintaining “public order.”

Such actions have provoked a storm of criticism from religious scholars, rights groups, and everyday Moroccans, many of whom are now accusing the regime of turning a deeply sacred occasion into a display of coercion.

Unlike fellow Muslim nations that encouraged public prayers, charity, and family gatherings, the Moroccan state has become the outlier—isolated by its oppressive approach and widely condemned for undermining core Islamic traditions.

While the Makhzen cloaks its measures in legal justifications, the people of Morocco are under no illusions: this is not a matter of health or order, but one of power, surveillance, and the continued erosion of religious autonomy.

Eid al-Adha, meant to commemorate the Prophet Ibrahim’s unwavering faith and sacrifice, has been hijacked in Morocco by a regime unwilling to grant its people the same right to practice their beliefs freely.

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