Dear All Fascinated by North Africa,

Please let me introduce the Fes-Portal, website of the city of Fes.

Fez or Fes (arab. فاس, fr. Fès) – third of the the biggest cities in Marocco, with almost 950 000 population. The ancient capitol of Maurs country and of Marocco founded by Idris II in 807. After French occupation in 1912 the capitol was moved to Rabat. Nowadays Fez becomes the centre of Moroccan economy and tourism as well as the religion with rich heritage of religious architecture: mosque Karaouiyne, Andalousian mosque from IX century and numerous mosques from XIV and XVI centuries. The city is still walled by the old curtains. In 1981 medina – the traditional district of arrabian cities - in Fez was registered on the Unesco world cultural heritage list. In 2001 a botanical garden was opened in Fez.

With Fes-Portal you can learn about the history and culture of the city, special event venues, tips to visit Fes. Fes-Portal closely cooperates with the accommodation specialist in this area of Africa - Riad Selection. Both, they present the authentic character of the city.

Royal Air Maroc, the Moroccan airlines company, has closed its prayer rooms and prevented its employees from going to the mosque during work hours.

The company stated that there was no official ban concerning prayers, but that it had to do something about the long breaks employees take in order to pray.

Praying five times a day is a crucial part of the Islamic religion, and the RAM’s unofficial ban raised a lot of controversy. Even if Islam is the predominant religion of Morocco, that does not justify taking long breaks from work to pray, knowing that the average period of time needed for every prayer is less than 10 minutes.

Some consider this ban as being political, and a move to cut down Islamist extremism, referring to some events that took place previously; and some consider it an offence to their religious freedom. Other complaints that were made against this company were about pilots and stewards who were not allowed to fast in Ramadan, and female staff who were not allowed to wear the veil.

Moroccan transport minister Karim Ghellab denied that the government has banned prayer times for employees at the RAM, and that they have only been asked to pray in their offices.

RAM employees said that prayer rooms were closed, and will be opened only on Fridays.