Spain’s “Festival of Morocco” in Tarragona Sparks Outrage: A Cultural Facade for Whitewashing Western Sahara Occupation

✍️ BY: Dr. Hana Saada

A leading Spanish newspaper denounces the controversial festival as a political ploy orchestrated by Rabat to legitimize its claim over Western Sahara through cultural manipulation and state-sponsored propaganda.

Algiers, Algeria | May 12th, 2025 — In an event marred by political overtones and diplomatic controversy, the so-called “Festival of Morocco in Tarragona” has drawn fierce criticism from Spanish media and human rights advocates for allegedly serving as a propaganda tool aimed at whitewashing Morocco’s illegal occupation of Western Sahara.

Organized under the patronage of the Moroccan Embassy in Spain and the Tarragona City Council — controlled by the Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party — the festival was initially promoted as a celebration of Moroccan culture. However, El Independiente, one of Spain’s most influential newspapers, exposed the event’s true motives in a searing editorial titled: “A So-Called Festival in Tarragona Celebrates the Green March: Whitewashing the Occupation of Western Sahara.”

According to the paper, the festival was far from a benign cultural gathering. It was a calculated maneuver by Moroccan authorities to normalize their occupation of the disputed Western Sahara territory under the guise of folklore, music, and traditional dress. The newspaper warned that what may appear as harmless displays of caftans and traditional weddings was, in fact, part of a broader Moroccan strategy to export its political narrative to the international stage.

The event featured active involvement from Moroccan diplomatic officials and the city’s leadership, including Tarragona’s mayor Rubén Viñuales, who openly praised the “integration of Moroccans” and the “brotherly ties” between Tarragona and the Moroccan city of Tangier. For El Independiente, such statements amounted to implicit support for Morocco’s unilateral claims over Western Sahara, a region whose final status remains under dispute and is considered by the United Nations as a non-self-governing territory.

One of the most striking elements of the festival was the participation of popular Moroccan singers Saida Charaf and Rachida Talal. Known for their songs glorifying Morocco’s claim to Western Sahara, these performers were, according to the newspaper, deliberately included to bolster Rabat’s narrative. Both singers hail from the “southern provinces,” a term used by Moroccan authorities to refer to the occupied Sahrawi lands, further fueling suspicions that the festival was anything but apolitical.

Spanish political and security officials also made appearances, including Carlos Prieto Gómez, the Spanish Government’s Delegate in Catalonia. While he praised the event as “an open window to Moroccan culture,” El Independiente harshly criticized his remarks as tone-deaf, given the sensitive and unresolved status of Western Sahara — a central issue in the often tense relations between Madrid and Rabat.

The newspaper concluded that the festival was not an innocent celebration, but a polished component of a larger, well-funded Moroccan campaign to spread its hegemonic vision through soft power and cultural diplomacy. Such initiatives, it warned, are designed to mobilize Moroccan diaspora communities in Europe and secure broader public acceptance of the occupation.

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