Morocco’s King Mohammed today ruled out any reforms in his country, shrugging off the growing protests as “demagoguery” and insisting that effective democracy was not yet possible in the nation, but might be at some undisclosed future date after additional developments.
Officials from Morocco’s Interior Ministry say as many as 37,000 Moroccans are now protesting across dozens of cities. The biggest rallies have been in the capital of Rabat and in Casablanca.
The protesters haven’t even demanded a full replacement of the monarchy with a democratic system, either, instead just calling for him to give up some of his powers and eliminate corruption in the government.
Officials say that most of the protests have been peaceful, but that a certain number of “troublemakers” had also used the protests to commit acts of vandalism, and that at least 120 have been arrested.
