biography
| sex:
| male
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| lived:
| (1929–99)
|
| biography:
| King of Morocco (1961–99), born in Rabat, Morocco, the eldest son of Sultan Mulay Mohammed Bin Yusuf, who was proclaimed king as Mohammed V in 1957. He was 20th of the Filali line of sharifs, or descendants of the Prophet, who have ruled Morocco since 1631. Having studied in France at Bordeaux University, Crown Prince Hassan served his father as head of the army and, on his accession as king in 1961, also became prime minister. He suspended parliament and established a royal dictatorship in 1965 after riots in Casablanca. Despite constitutional reforms (1970–2), he retained supreme religious and political authority. His forces occupied Spanish (Western) Sahara in 1975, and he mobilized a large army to check the incursion of Polisario guerrillas across his W Saharan frontier (1976–88). Unrest in the larger towns led Hassan to appoint a coalition ‘government of national unity’ under a civilian prime minister in 1984. He helped form the Arab Maghreb Union in 1989, and was chairman of its Presidential Council in 1991. |
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