Morocco's rising Islamist challenge

Radical Islam represents a double threat to the Moroccan state - undermining the government's image of moderation and challenging its control over the faith. In response, parliament approved in May 2003 the Ministry of Interior's wide-ranging Antiterrorism Law, which in its first five months permitted the arrests of 4,000 suspected extremists.

Some believe Morocco is exploiting the terrorist threat to justify its increasing control of moderate Islamic parties. When first proposed in 2001, the antiterrorism legislation - which allows the government to monitor imams, mosques, and the religious content of textbooks, and which defines even "apologizing for terrorism" as a crime - was opposed by the Islamist Justice and Development Party (PJD). After the Casablanca bombings, however, the party backed away from its stance and the law passed.

Such acquiescence, coupled with the PJD's agreement to run in just 20 percent of 2003's local electoral contests, prompted suspicion that the party is giving in to government pressure to protect its position as Morocco's only legal Islamist party. Tremendously popular, Justice and Development won 42 seats in 2002's parliamentary elections, and because all other major parties joined Prime Minister Driss Jettou's coalition government, the PJD now functions as the opposition. Yet as the government has cracked down on Islamist extremism, the party's moderate brand of religion-based politics has come under heavy scrutiny.

In March, the government drafted a bill, the Law of Political Parties, that would ban religious (as well as regional and ethnic) references from party platforms. If it passes, the law will effectively dissolve the PJD and all other meaningful Islamist opposition.

In June, the state arrested Nadia Yassine, spokeswoman for Islamic movement Al Adl Wal Ihsan, or Justice and Charity, when she expressed her belief that Morocco would be healthier as a republic than a monarchy. In many ways Yassine symbolizes the state's Islamist dilemma: while she's a devout Muslim, married with four children, she is also a highly educated women's rights advocate who once told the BBC she believed the Prophet Muhammad was a de facto feminist.

If antagonism between the government and Islamist moderates continues, it may well cultivate further Islamic extremism. Increased political participation by moderate Islamist groups is the best way to curb the growth of extremism in Morocco, says Haizem Amirah, the senior North Africa analyst at the Royal Elcano Institute in Madrid.

"The moderate Islamists need to compete more in the political game, and form alliances with the secular groups," he explains. "That would check the radical sectors, because they would start to feel that they had less popular support, less a sense of a mission."

At PJD headquarters, vice-secretary Abdelah Baha maintains that his party can work within the existing system. "Islam and democracy can go together as global principle," he says. "Our party bases its objectives on religious principles, and then adapts them to political ends. We're like the American evangelicals."

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