Hundreds of Moroccans and Spaniards signed an electronic petition calling on the Madrid authorities to re-investigate the murder of a Moroccan youth, a year ago, and Spanish media dubbed him the "Moroccan Floyd".
The Spanish Elbais revealed the secrets of the killing of a Moroccan youth about a year ago by six Spanish policemen in a manner very similar to the killing of an African American citizen, George Floyd.
The newspaper published a clip on the police’s dealings with the Moroccan citizen, named Elias Taheri, which sparked widespread anger in Maghreb and Arab circles by marking "Justice for Elias".
The recording, published by the Spanish newspaper, dates back to July of last year, in which five guards of a shelter for minors in the city of Almeria show the Moroccan minor trying to control him, despite his lack of resistance, as the recording shows.
The #Justice_Ilias tagging sweeps Twitter after a video clip documenting the death of a Moroccan minor at the hands of security personnel at a shelter in Spain .. activists appears similar to his case with the murder case of George Floyd pic.twitter.com/NpOBEQ9iqA
- AJ + Arabic (@ajplusarabi) June 14, 2020
The video showed the guards inserting the handcuffed Taheri behind his back into a room trying to tie him to the bed, and strangled him for 13 minutes in a scene similar to the suffocation of Minneapolis police for Floyd, and the victim soon passed away, and the medical autopsy concluded that the restraint process may be behind his suffocation.
The newspaper pointed out that the victim's family had appealed a judicial decision to close the file after an investigation concluded that the accident was the result of an accidental death.
Achieving justice
Moroccan activists, through social media, called on Sunday the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to put pressure on the Spanish authorities, and intervene to achieve justice, by resuming the trial of those involved in the killing of El-Taheri.
And the Arab Culture Foundation (non-governmental) in Spain announced, through a statement, the installation of itself as a civil party in the case, after reviewing the video recording.
Elias is a young man, a victim of racist dealing, who reveals the incursion of racist thinking towards Moroccan immigrants in European countries.
Justice did not do justice to the blood of Elias, who was killed during a direct recording at the time of the attack.
Today Ilias, tomorrow you and I # JusticeForIlyass # JusticiaParaIlias pic.twitter.com/yEIxgEuUfB
- Hassan ⛥ (@Hassan_khalile) June 12, 2020
She added that the victim was subjected to "inhuman treatment before his death by asphyxiation ... It is related to a premeditated murder that was fueled by hatred and racism and not by violent accidental death, as the Borchima Town Court ruled last January."
The court ruled that Al-Taheri's death was an accident, and considered that an attempt to confirm it for a long time was "necessary" to prevent "violence or injury to the inmate himself."
The Arab Culture Foundation called on the Almeria Court to "change its standards and issue a model ruling on this incident."
In a statement, the Moroccan Democratic Authority for Human Rights (a non-governmental organization) condemned what it described as "racial injustice and the brutality of the Spanish police" that claimed the life of Taheri, who hails from the northern city of Tetouan.