The court of first instance of Kénitra ruled, on Tuesday, in favour of the city's municipal council, which had filed an urgent appeal asking the Kénitra Festival Association to vacate premises it was using as an office in a cultural centre in the city.

The president of the council, Aziz Rebbah, asked the association, which organizes the "Thamusida" music festival, to vacate the office it occupies at the Dar Belarbi House of Culture, with a view to transferring one of the municipal services there. In a letter addressed to the association, Mr. Rebbah justified this decision by the restructuring of the municipal administration and the creation of new services, the renovation work that the headquarters of the commune will undergo, and the weight of the rent of administrative annexes in the commune's budget.

In reaction to this decision, the president of the Kénitra Festival Association, Toufik Lahlou, had questioned, during a press conference last January, the reasons why only his association had received such a summons, while several other associations, according to him, are active in the cultural centre. He had estimated that the premises his association operates are "a cultural space intended for the cultural associations of the city and cannot be exploited for administrative purposes."

A collective of associations active in the city had then formed to support the Festival Association and had drawn attention to the gravity of the municipal council's decision to "confiscate the only cultural centre in the city" at a time when the creation of other socio-cultural spaces was expected.

The urban council had, for its part, retorted, in a press release, that the Kénitra Festival Association had benefited, during the previous mandate, from these premises in the absence of clear and transparent criteria.

The association, the council had added, organizes only one activity in the year, during a period that does not exceed a few days, and consequently its occupation of these premises, for a whole year, poses several questions related to governance for official bodies and civil society. The council had specified that the premises in question will be operated by the cultural and sports affairs department.