Morocco uses Islam to keep tabs on migrants

The Moroccan government has reportedly developed "a strategy of great magnitude" to retain its influence on Moroccan residents living in Spain by using Islam as a binding factor, a confidential report by Spanish intelligence sources concludes.

"Designed and developed by the regime, the objective is to extend its influence and increase its control over Moroccan communities by using Islam as an excuse," reads the report signed in May by the director of the Center for National Intelligence (CNI), Félix Sanz Roldán.

The Spanish Justice and Interior Ministries also agreed with the CNI that the Rabat government wants to control its 760,000 Moroccan citizens "to detect movements opposed to the regime," according to another report that was signed in 2009.

The reports, accessed by EL PAÍS, also cite the importance of the Morocco government in keeping any fundamental Islamist movements from gaining ground in the North African nation.

In the report, entitled Muslims and Muslim Communities in Spain , both the Justice and Interior Ministries are highly critical about the Moroccan-language and cultural classes given in hundreds of schools and paid for by the Hassan II Foundation.

The classes, according to the report, obstruct the integration of the children of Moroccan immigrants into Spanish society. "It is a tool to teach the children of immigrants how to become a Moroccan and not a Spaniard."