Sharon Cohen, professionally known as Dana International, is an Israeli pop singer. She has released eight albums and three additional compilation albums. She was the winner of the Eurovision Song Contest 1998 in Birmingham with the song "Diva".
The 2003 Casablanca bombings, commonly known as May 16, were a series of coordinated suicide bombings on May 16, 2003, in Casablanca, Morocco. Twelve suicide bombers loyal to the Salafia Jihadia organization detonated bombs hidden in backpacks in the Casa de España restaurant, the Hotel Farah, the Jewish Alliance of Casablanca, and sites near the Belgian consulate and an old Jewish cemetery. The attacks, which were later claimed by al-Qaeda, were the deadliest terrorist attacks in Morocco's history, claiming the lives of forty-five people and injuring at least 100. Despite deliberately targeting Jews, none of the victims were Jews as the attack occurred during Shabbat.
Samira Abdelrazak Bensaïd, professionally known as Samira Said, is a Moroccan-Egyptian singer who has lived in Egypt for more than 40 years and is known for her Egyptian Arabic genre.
Najwa Karam is a Lebanese multi-platinum singer, songwriter, producer, fashion icon, and TV personality. She has sold over 60 million records worldwide, and she became the highest selling artist in 1999, 2008, and 2011.
Hamid Bouchnak is a Moroccan raï singer.
Saïda El Mehdi is a Moroccan middle distance runner who specializes in the 800 and 1500 metres.
Helen Meles is an Eritrean singer and actress. She has released several albums and appeared in many top-rated Eritrean films.
Democratic Way is a legal Marxist-Leninist political party in Morocco, led by Mustapha Brahma and includes former members of the heavily repressed Ila al-Amam group and the Marxist-Leninist Moroccan Movement.
Aziza Brahim is a Sahrawi singer and actress.
Saad Lamjarred is a Moroccan singer, songwriter, actor, multi-instrumentalist, dancer, and record producer. His official music video for "LM3ALLEM" has received over 1 billion views on YouTube. Saad Lamjarred has had 16 songs so far.
Saida Menebhi was a Moroccan poet, high school teacher, and activist with the Marxist revolutionary movement Ila al-Amam. In 1975, she, together with five other members of the movement, was sentenced for seven years of imprisonment for anti-state activity. On November 8, 1977, inside the jail in Casablanca, she participated in a collective hunger strike, and died on the 35th day of the strike at Avicenne Hospital.
Malouma Mint El Meidah, also simply Maalouma or Malouma, is a Mauritanian singer, songwriter and politician. Raised in the south-west of the country by parents versed in traditional Mauritanian music, she first performed when she was twelve, soon featuring in solo concerts. Her first song "Habibi Habeytou" harshly criticized the way in which women were treated by their husbands. Though an immediate success, it caused an outcry from the traditional ruling classes. After being forced into marriage while still a teenager, Malouma had to give up singing until 1986. She developed her own style combining traditional music with blues, jazz, and electro. Appearing on television with songs addressing highly controversial topics such as conjugal life, poverty and inequality, she was censored in Mauritania in the early 1990s but began to perform abroad by the end of the decade. After the ban was finally lifted, she relaunched her singing and recording career, gaining popularity, particularly among the younger generation. Her fourth album, Knou (2014), includes lyrics expressing her views on human rights and women's place in society.
Amina Bouayach is a Moroccan human rights activist. Since December 2018, Bouayach has served as the president of the Moroccan National Human Rights Council. In this role, she affirmed in 2019 that there are no "political prisoners in Morocco."
The 15th edition of Mawazine Festival, an international music festival held annually in the Moroccan capital of Rabat, took place from 20 May to 28 May 2016.
Aïsha Al-Manoubya, also known by the honorific As-Saida ('saint') or Lella, is one of the most famous women in Tunisian history and a prominent figure in Islam. She is "one of the few females to have been granted the title of saint."
Mouhcine Fikri was a Moroccan fish vendor from Al Hoceima. On October 28, 2016, a police officer confiscated 500 kg of swordfish that he had purchased from Al Hoceima port. When Fikri climbed into the back of a rubbish truck to retrieve the confiscated fish, worth over $11,000, the rubbish crusher mechanism was activated, crushing him to death. A witness is said to have heard the police officers involved order the crusher to be activated, leading to the man's death. Video footage of his death was widely played on social media in Morocco. Outrage led to protests in Al Hoceima, that spread across Morocco. Fikri's death drew parallels with the suicide of Mohamed Bouazizi, the Tunisian fruit seller whose death in 2010 sparked protests in Tunisia, leading both to revolution there and to the wider Arab Spring.
The Hirak Rif Movement or the Rif Movement is a popular resistance movement that organised mass protests in the Berber Rif region in northern Morocco between October 2016 and June 2017. The movement was triggered by the death of Mouhcine Fikri, a fishmonger who was crushed to death after jumping in the back of a garbage truck attempting to retrieve his allegedly illegal fish merchandise confiscated by local authorities.
Saida Charaf is a Moroccan Sahrawi singer.
Slavery existed in Morocco since antiquity until the 20th-century. Morocco was a center of the Trans-Saharan slave trade route of enslaved Black Africans from sub-Saharan Africa until the 20th-century, as well as a center of the Barbary slave trade of Europeans captured by the Barbary pirates until the 19th-century. The open slave trade was finally suppressed in Morocco in the 1920s. The haratin and the gnawa have been referred to as descendants of former slaves.
Samia Fikri is a footballer who plays as a midfielder for Seconde Ligue club Rodez. Born in France, she represents Morocco at international level.
