Police arrested several people on Wednesday at a cafe in the megalopolis Casablanca suspected of not respecting the fast of Ramadan, which is punishable under Moroccan law, the local press reported.
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“Customers and employees of the cafe in central Casablanca were arrested amid a large public gathering of citizens,” news site Hespress reported, without specifying the number of those arrested.
Mixed reactions after police operation
It was not possible to get any further information about this operation from the police. Internet television Chouf TV broadcast a video showing police officers, one after the other, young girls and boys, delivering coffee to a police car.
In the crowd gathered around the crime scene, “most welcomed the police intervention out of respect for the Moroccan faith, while others condemned the intervention,” Hespress reported. During the holy month of Ramadan, one of the five pillars of Islam, believers are asked to refrain from drinking, eating and sexual intercourse from sunrise to sunset.
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In Morocco, a country where Islam is the state religion, Article 222 of the penal code stipulates that breaking a fast in public is punishable by imprisonment for up to six months. Arrests for breaking the fast have made headlines in recent years, much to the chagrin of a handful of activists defending the right to be free from the fast.
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