The garment is inspired by the tiles of El Mechouar, in the city of Tlemcen, bordering Morocco
The Government of Morocco has asked the German sporting goods manufacturer Adidas to remove a collection of t-shirts inspired by “Moroccan tiles” because he considers it a “theft” of the country’s cultural heritage for the supposed benefit of Algeriaa Moroccan government source informed Efe.
The source, who requested anonymity, explained that the Moroccan Ministry of Youth, Culture and Communication hired “urgently” a Moroccan lawyer to “defend against a new theft of Moroccan heritage“, and which is attributed to Algeria.
The new collection was announced on the 23rd in a tweet from Adidas Mena, which specified that the new design is inspired by the tiles of the palace of El Mechouar, from the Algerian city of Tlemcen, bordering Morocco. The tweet announced that the sale of the new shirts was scheduled to start on October 14.
The Moroccan source added that the lawyer sent a “judicial reprimand” to the legal representative of Adidas to alert the company that the new design of the shirt represents an “attempt to steal one of the traditional Moroccan cultural heritages to use it outside its context”.
He also added that this “theft” contributes to “the identity loss and distortion and the history of these cultural elements”.
The source added that the Ministry of Culture will spare no effort to prevent Moroccan heritage from being “stolen”, defend it throughout the world and deal with any such practice.
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