casablanca morocco

Main sights



Hassan II Mosque.


Casablanca Cathedral
The French period Ville Nouvelle (New Town) of Casablanca was designed by the French architect Henri Prost, and was a model of a new town at that time. The main streets radiate south and east from Place des Nations Unies, previously the main market of Anfa. Former administrative buildings and modern hotels populate the area. Their style is a combination of Hispano-Mauresque and Art Deco.
Casablanca is home to the Hassan II Mosque, designed by the French architect Michel Pinseau. It is situated on a promontory on the Atlantic. The mosque has room for 25,000 worshippers inside, and a further 80,000 can be accommodated in the mosque's courtyard. Its minaret is the world's tallest at 210 metres. The mosque is also the largest in North Africa, and the third largest in the world.[38]
Work on the mosque was started in 1980, and was intended to be completed for the 60th birthday of the former Moroccan king, Hassan II, in 1989. However, the building was not inaugurated until 1993. Authorities spent an estimated $800 million in the construction of the building.
The Parc de la Ligue Arabe (formally called Lyautey) is the city's largest public park. On its edge is the Casablanca Cathedral (Cathédrale Sacré-Coeur). It is no longer in use for religious purposes, but it is open to visitors and a splendid example of Mauresque architecture. The Old Medina (the part of town pre-dating the French protectorate) attracts fewer tourists than the medinas of cities like Fes and Marrakech. However, it has undergone some restoration in recent years. Included in this project have been the western walls of the medina, its skala, or bastion, and its colonial-period clock tower.
A popular site among locals is the small island Marabout de Sidi Abderrahmane. It is possible to walk across to the rocky island at low tide. This outcrop contains the tomb of Sidi Abderrhamane Thaalibi, a Sufi from Baghdad and the founder of Algiers. He is considered a saint in Morocco.[39] Because of this, many Moroccans make informal pilgrimages to this site "to reflect on life and to seek religious enlightenment". Some believe that the saint possessed magical powers and so his tomb still possesses these powers. People come and seek this magic in order to be cured. Non-Muslims may not enter the shrine.


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casablanca morocco

Today Casablanca is a large, modern city, but the former French colonial post still allows myriad movie moments for those who want to revisit love in the medina and Old City. Casa (as locals call it) isn’t too touristy, but it’s the most cosmopolitan and Western-feeling city in Morocco. Visit The King Hassan II Mosque and Casa's Medina.

 original name in Berber: ⴰⵏⴼⴰ Anfa) is a city in western Morocco, located on the Atlantic Ocean. It is the capital of the Grand Casablanca region.
Casablanca is Morocco's largest city as well as its chief port. It is also the biggest city in the Maghreb region. The 2004 census recorded a population of 3,500,000 in the prefecture of Casablanca and 4,000,000 in the region of Grand Casablanca. Casablanca is considered the economic and business center of Morocco, while the political capital city of Morocco is Rabat.
Casablanca hosts headquarters and main industrial facilities for the leading Moroccan and international companies based in Morocco. Industrial statistics show Casablanca retains its historical position as the main industrial zone of the country. The Port of Casablanca is one of the largest artificial ports in the world,[1] and the largest port of North Africa.[2] It is also the primary naval base for the Royal Moroccan Navy.



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Moroccan teenager's

Moroccan teenager's suicide after she was forced to marry her rapist
A Moroccan teenager committed suicide after her family forced her to marry her rapist in a tragedy that has sparked outrage among Moroccan activists and demands for changes to the nation's laws.

Hamida, Right, and Souad, the sister and mother of Amina Al Filali sit at her grave in Larache Photo: AFP/Getty Images
By Paul Carsten, and agencies2:50PM GMT 15 Mar 2012
Amina Filali, 16, drank rat poison last week in order to kill herself because she had been made to marry the man who raped her when she was 15 years old.
Activists have set up a Facebook group called "We are all Amina Filali", with almost 1,000 members. A petition was started which already contains more than 1,000 signatures, and hundreds of tweets detail people's horror at the tragedy.
Nabil Belkabir, an activist, implored people on Twitter to "Join the group 'We are all Amina Filali' if you don't want this drama to happen again."
According to the president of Morocco's Democratic League for Women's Rights, Fouzia Assouli, Miss Filali's rapist married her to avoid receiving a sentence for rape.
In Morocco this is punishable by five to ten years in prison, but the sentence rises to between ten and twenty years if the victim is a minor.
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Article 475 of the Moroccan penal code, which purports to defend family values, states that if a rapist marries his victim he is then exonerated of his crime. Ms Assouli attacked the article, saying it "does not uphold the rights of women".
In many societies, including within the Middle East, a woman losing her virginity before marriage is considered a dishonour to her family. For this reason, families will often make arrangements for rape victims to marry their rapists, so as to restore their lost honour. The Book of Deuteronomy in the Old Testament contains a similar injunction.
"Amina, 16, was triply violated, by her rapist, by tradition and by Article 475 of the Moroccan law," activist Abadila Maaelaynine wrote on Twitter.
Miss Filali's father, Lahcen Filali, told an online Moroccan newspaper that his daughter only told her parents of the rape two months after it had occurred. When they reported it, the prosecutor advised his daughter to marry.
Although the rapist had initially rejected the proposal to marry Miss Filali, he agreed once threatened with prosecution.
The manager of the Adala Association for legal reform, Abdelaziz Nouaydi, said that a judge can only encourage the victim and rapist to marry when there is agreement from the victim and both families.
Mr Nouaydi said that although it isn't a common occurrence, the victim's family will sometimes assent to the marriage due to worries she will be unable to find a husband if her rape becomes common knowledge.
Ms Assouli said that the victim is then forced to marry in order to avoid scandal for her family.
Despite Morocco changing its family code in 2004 in an attempt to improve women's rights, the practice continues. "It is unfortunately a recurring phenomenon," she said. "We have been asking for years for the cancellation of Article 475 of the penal code which allows the rapist to escape justice."
Legislation to outlaw all forms of violence against women, which includes rape within marriage, has failed to move beyond government debate since first being proposed in 2006.
Mr Filali said his daughter had complained to her mother that her husband beat her repeatedly throughout the five months they were married. Her mother advised her to be patient.
According to a government study conducted last year, almost one quarter of Moroccan women have been sexually assaulted at least once in their lives.



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