Morocco: Christian Aid Workers Expelled

In what many view as a sudden and unexpected change in policy, the Moroccan government announced the forthcoming deportation of dozens of Christian aid workers after accusing them of unlawful proselytizing. Although a Moroccan official rejected claims of discrimination and maintained that this was simply a “move against people who don’t respect the law of this country,” U.S. Ambassador to Morocco Samuel Kaplan was “discouraged and saddened” by what he views as the unnecessary expulsion of law-abiding foreign nationals. “We hope to see significant improvements in the application of due process in this sort of case,” he said.

Unsurprised by this rather arbitrary crackdown, even after years of relative tolerance under King Mohamed VI, one observer at the Moroccan Dispatches surmises that Morocco’s inconsistent enforcement of various laws — oftentimes subject to whether or not an offender can afford to pay off the authorities — makes it “hard to know what really is permissible and what is not…since a rule on the books does not necessarily mean anything.”