STEVE INSKEEP, host:
Morocco stayed quiet until the weekend. Yesterday, people protested in more than 30 cities. The crowds dispersed after a few hours but organizers say they've mobilize a new opposition.
NPR's Tom Gjelten reports from Casablanca.
TOM GJELTEN: The demonstrations here in Morocco were a month in the planning. There was actually a February 20th organizing committee, with youth and women's groups, labor unions, human rights organizations and Islamists.
(Soundbite of crowd protesting)
GJELTEN: The groups were all represented at the demonstration in Rabat, each with its own banners and megaphones.
(Soundbite of chanting protestors)
GJELTEN: These people were singing a Moroccan version of "We Shall Overcome." In the front was a group of conservative Muslim women, dressed in black abayas, from head to toe, their faces veiled. They held photographs of young men, all of them prisoners. One woman came running up to explain.
Ms. AMINA CHBANI: My husband is in prison, ok?
GJELTEN: He's in prison now?
Ms. CHBANI: Yes, exactly.
GJELTEN: What's he charged with?
Ms. CHBANI: He's charged with - I don't know how we call it in English.
GJELTEN: Terrorism.
Ms. CHBANI: Terrorism, OK?
GJELTEN: Her name is Amina Chbani. She's 30 years old. Her husband, whom she describes as a devout Muslim, was arrested in 2003 after a wave of bombings in Casablanca.
Ms. CHBANI: They took everybody, OK? They took many people. Not all are terrorists. Some of them are terrorists, some others are not.
(Soundbite of shouting and clapping)
GJELTEN: In another corner of the plaza, a group of young men are chanting, down with America. They say the Moroccan government is too subservient to U.S. interests, too willing to collaborate with the U.S. counterterrorism agenda.
(Soundbite of shouting and clapping)
GJELTEN: But this was not generally an angry crowd. Morocco remains largely a moderate secular country a point Mohammed Essebar is anxious to emphasize. He's president of the Moroccan Forum for Truth and Justice.
Mr. MOHAMMED ESSEBAR (President, Moroccan Forum for Truth and Justice): (Foreign language spoken)
GJELTEN: Never forget that Morocco is only fourteen miles away from Europe, Essebar says. He wants what he calls a parliamentary monarchy for Morocco, where the monarchy, in his words, reigns but does not rule.
The king here, Mohammed the Sixth, is young and for the most part has been personally popular. After taking over from his father, Hassan the Second in 1999, he promptly instituted modernizing reforms. But many Moroccans say those reforms largely stalled after the terrorist attacks here in 2003.
The demonstration yesterday stopped in front of the Parliament, an institution Moroccan reformers deride as relatively powerless. Go away, the demonstrators shout.
(Soundbite of demonstrators chanting)
GJELTEN: By nightfall, demonstrators in Rabat and other big cities had mostly dispersed. The protests had been largely peaceful. The police kept a very low profile, though in at least two Moroccan cities, clashes were reported, and some protestors are said to have been injured.
The peacefulness of the protests was largely a tribute to their organizers. As in other Arab countries, youth were in the forefront. Aboubaker Jamai, an exiled journalist and prominent Moroccan dissident, came back here for the occasion. But at 43, Jamai already feels a little out of the loop. On the night before the demonstration, he sat at his mother's apartment in Casablanca, marveling at what Moroccan youth have accomplished - like with the sophisticated video they produced and posted on YouTube to promote their cause.
Mr. ABOUBAKER JAMAI (Journalist): When I watched this clip for the first time, I felt obsolete, myself. And I never would have guessed that I would be happy to be obsolete. The themes they are working on are themes my newspaper has struggled for for years, but they don't know us.
GJELTEN: The question now is whether anything will follow from these demonstrations. The government may feel it has weathered this one-day storm. But the organizers say they've inspired a genuine nationwide opposition movement and they insist Morocco cannot turn back.
Tom Gjelten, NPR News, Casablanca.
(Soundbite of music)
INSKEEP: It's MORNING EDITION from NPR News. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
