Morocco shuts residences of Islamic group members

By Khaled Majdoub

RABAT

Moroccan authorities have closed three residences of leading members of the Al-Adl Wal-Ihsane (Justice and Benevolence) Islamic movement on Wednesday, the movement announced.

Local media reports, meanwhile, said that the residences were closed as they were being used to host illegal meetings and as secret mosques.

No comment from the Moroccan authorities was issued until 1300GMT.

Last week, another three residences affiliated with the movement were shut down by Moroccan authorities, a move over which the movement said it will file a lawsuit.

In February 2017, government institutions sacked some 130 members of the same movement from official posts while sacked imams from several mosques without elaborating on the reasons behind the move.

The group was founded at the end of the 1970s by Sheikh Abdul Salam Yassin (1928-2012) and later banned by the government. The movement says it obtained a formal license from authorities in the 1980s.