Police and protesters clash in Rabat

Several persons, including policemen, were injured on Sunday during clashes between the police and a group of unemployed graduates who staged a march in downtown Rabat to ask for jobs.

Eyewitnesses told MAP the police was forced to disperse the crowd as protesters started to throw stones at the police stationed around the offices of the Moroccan Labor Union (UMT) where a group of university graduates were observing a sit-in.

A statement of the Rabat-Sale authorities says the incidents, the second in a week, broke out when several hundreds of protesters "violently disturbed the public order" when "trying to hold an unauthorized rally."

The police used tear gas, injuring some twenty persons who were taken to hospital, and arrested some thirty protesters.