Hassan II (Hassan bin Mohammed Al Alaoui; 9 July 1929 – 23 July 1999) was King of Morocco from 1961 until his death in 1999.
Hassan was born in Rabat during the reign of his father, Mohammed V, who would later lead Morocco to independence from French and Spanish rule. He was the eldest son of the sultan and received a dual education that combined traditional Islamic instruction with modern studies at the Royal College in Rabat, before pursuing legal studies at the University of Bordeaux. During the final years of the French protectorate, Hassan became increasingly involved in political and diplomatic affairs, accompanying his father during exile and later taking part in negotiations that culminated in Morocco's independence in 1956. As crown prince, he quickly emerged as a central political figure within the newly independent state and was named commander-in-chief of the Royal Armed Forces by his father.
Upon his accession to the throne in 1961, Hassan inherited a fragile political system as many parts of the country were still under foreign control, and police and military were scattered and often controlled by political parties. In 1962, he promulgated Morocco's first constitution, which formally established a constitutional monarchy and a multi-party political system while reserving extensive executive powers for the king. His early reign was marked by significant instability, including the Sand War with Algeria in 1963 and growing domestic opposition that culminated in the Casablanca protests of 1965. In response, he declared a state of exception and ruled by decree for several years. He oversaw the recovery of Sidi Ifni from Spain in 1969.
His position was further threatened by two major coup attempts—the Skhirat attack in 1971 and the air force attack in 1972—both of which he survived, reinforcing his determination to centralize power and maintain control over the military and political system. In 1975, Hassan organized the Green March, a mass mobilization aimed at asserting Moroccan sovereignty over the former Spanish Sahara, leading to Morocco's control over much of the territory and the onset of the prolonged Western Sahara conflict with the Polisario Front.
Hassan pursued a foreign policy that positioned Morocco as a strategic ally of Western powers while maintaining ties within the Arab world. Domestically, his rule combined state-building and economic development with strict political control, and was characterized by an authoritarian system, particularly during the Years of Lead. Hassan died in Rabat on 23 July 1999 and was succeeded by his eldest son, Mohammed VI. In the years following his death, the Moroccan state established the Equity and Reconciliation Commission to investigate human rights violations committed during his reign, marking a significant step toward official acknowledgment of that period.
Early life and education Moulay El Hassan ben Mohammed El Alaoui was born on 9 July 1929 at the Dar al-Makhzen in Rabat, during the French protectorate in Morocco, as the eldest son of then-reigning sultan Mohammed V and his second wife, Lalla Abla bint Tahar, as a member of the 'Alawi dynasty.
He first studied Islamic sciences at the Dar al-Makhzen in Fez. He then became a student at the Royal College in Rabat, where instruction was conducted in Arabic and French and a class was created for him. Mehdi Ben Barka was notably his mathematics teacher for four years at the Royal College. In June 1948, he obtained his baccalaureate from the Royal College.
Hassan pursued his higher education at the Rabat Institute of Higher Studies, a department of the University of Bordeaux, from where he received a law degree in 1951. In 1952, he earned a master's degree in public law from the University of Bordeaux before serving in the French Navy on board the Jeanne d'Arc cruiser. He was a doctoral student at the Faculty of Law of Bordeaux in 1953, when his family's exile occurred. After having ascended the throne, on 25 June 1963, Dean Lajugie presented him with the insignia of Doctor Honoris Causa of the University of Bordeaux.
Heir apparent
In 1943, Hassan, then twelve years old, attended the Casablanca Conference at the Anfa Hotel along with his father, where he met United States president Franklin D. Roosevelt, British prime minister Winston Churchill and French general Charles de Gaulle. In 1947, he was present at his father's speech in what was then the Tangier International Zone. In the speech, Sultan Mohammed called for the French and Spanish protectorates and the Tangier International Zone to be unified into one nation. The speech became a reference for Moroccan nationalists and anti-colonial movements and later led to Morocco's independence.
Hassan later claimed that he had "profound resentment" towards the protectorate and that he felt "deep humiliation" from French colonialism. Despite paying hommage to Hubert Lyautey, the first resident-general of the French protectorate, he was highly critical of Lyautey's successors, noting their "stubborn stupidity" and "total insensitivity".
Hassan and his family were forced into exile by French authorities on 20 August 1953, being deported to Zonza in Corsica. Their deportation led to protests and further fueled the anti-colonial movement. They moved to the city of L'Île-Rousse and lived at the Napoléon Bonaparte hotel for five months before being transferred to Antsirabe, Madagascar in January 1954. During this time, Mohammed Ben Aarafa was named sultan in Morocco by the French government.
Prince Hassan acted as his father's political advisor during their exile. They returned to Morocco on 16 November 1955. He participated with his father in the February 1956 negotiations for Moroccan independence. Following Morocco's independence from France, his father named him commander-in-chief of the newly founded Royal Moroccan Armed Forces in April 1956. The same year, he led army contingents to victory after defeating rebel militias during the Rif revolt. It was during his tenure as commander-in-chief that he met General Mohamed Oufkir, who became Minister of Defense during his reign. Oufkir would later suspected of orchestrating a failed coup d'état to kill Hassan in 1972.
After Mohammed V changed the title of the Moroccan sovereign from Sultan to King in 1957, Hassan was proclaimed Crown Prince on 9 July 1957. In this position, he was the president of the organising committee of the International Meeting at the monastery of Toumliline in 1957 and gave a welcome speech.
Reign Hassan ascended the throne on 26 February 1961, after his father died following complications from a surgery. His enthronement took place at the Royal Palace of Rabat on 3 March 1961, and he also inherited the position of prime minister.
Domestic policy
In 1962, Hassan and his aides wrote Morocco's first constitution, defining the kingdom as a social and democratic constitutional monarchy, making Islam the state religion, and creating the title of Amir al-Mu'minin and "supreme representative of the nation" for the king, whose person was defined as "inviolable and sacred". The constitution also reaffirmed a multi-party political system, the only one which existed in the Maghreb at that time. The constitution provoked strong political protest from the UNFP and the Istiqlal and other leftist parties that formed the opposition at the time.
Hassan's reign was infamous for a poor human rights record labeled as "appalling" by the BBC. It was, however, at its worst during the period from the 1960s to the late 1980s, which was labelled as the "years of lead" and saw thousands of dissidents jailed, killed, exiled or forcibly disappeared. The country would only become relatively freer by the early 1990s under strong international pressure and condemnation over its human rights record. Since then, Morocco's human rights record has improved modestly and improved significantly during the reign of Hassan's successor Mohammed VI. In 2004, the Equity and Reconciliation Commission was created by Mohammed to investigate human rights abuses during his father's reign.
Hassan imprisoned many members of the National Union of Popular Forces and sentenced some party leaders, including Mehdi Ben Barka, to death. A series of student protests began on 21 March 1965 in Casablanca, and devolved into general riots the following day; the resulting violent repression led to hundreds of deaths. In the aftermath, on 26 March, Hassan gave a speech that he concluded with: "There is no greater danger to a country than a so-called intellectual; it would have been better if you had all been illiterate."
In June, he dissolved parliament and suspended the constitution of 1962, declaring a state of exception that would last more than five years, in which he ruled Morocco directly; however, he did not completely abolish the mechanisms of parliamentary democracy. An alleged report from the U.S. Secretary of State claimed that, during this period, "Hassan [appeared] obsessed with the preservation of his power rather than with its application toward the resolution of Morocco's multiplying domestic problems."
In October 1965, Mehdi Ben Barka, a key political opponent and fierce critic of Hassan, was kidnapped and disappeared in Paris. In Rise and Kill First, Ronen Bergman points to cooperation between the Moroccan authorities and Israel's Mossad in locating Ben Barka.
In 1990, following riots in Fez, Hassan set up the Consultative Human Rights Council to look into allegations of abuse by the State. In 1991, he pardoned two thousand prisoners, including political prisoners and people held in secret prisons including in Tazmamart. In 1998, the first opposition-led government was elected.
During his reign, Morocco was labeled as "partly free" by Freedom House, except for a "not free" ranking in 1992.
Attempted coups d'état In the early 1970s, Hassan survived two assassination attempts. The first occurred on 10 July 1971 during his forty-second birthday party at his palace in Skhirat, near Rabat. The attempted coup was carried out by up to 1,400 army cadets from the Ahermoumou military training academy led by General Mohamed Medbouh and Colonel M'hamed Ababou. Hassan was reported to have hidden in a bathroom whilst grenades were thrown and rapid shots were fired. The rebels also raided and took over the offices of the RTM, Morocco's state-owned broadcasting company, broadcasting propaganda claiming that the king had been murdered and that a republic had been founded. Ababou gave orders to rebels through Radio-Maroc, ordering the execution of everyone in the palace by asking that "dinner be served to everyone by 7 pm" on air. The coup ended the same day when royalist troops took over the palace in combat against the rebels. After firing died down, Hassan ended up face-to-face with one of the rebel commanders; he reportedly intimidated the leader of the rebel troops by reciting a verse of the Quran, and the commander knelt and kissed his right hand.