harassed, followed, & threatened in Marrakech

hi all. travelling in Marrakech currently, it’s my first day here and already i want to leave.

my wife and i were walking through an area by our hotel (Jama El Fana) when i was stopped by a man asking if i want any ‘shish’. i didn’t even know what he was referring to at the time, so i said No thank you and we tried to move away. he followed us and suddenly started shouting in Arabic, which we didn’t understand. then he yelled ‘you’re racist, you’re racist!’ and something about ‘you look at me’?

i immediately got defensive and maybe this is what made him more aggressive, but i was worried about my wife’s safety first of all. he yelled ‘come to my shop now and buy’ but we had started leaving at this point as he was very aggressive and strange. he was clearly on drugs. i don’t think he even had/owned a shop. additionally, i asked my Arab friend what shish meant and he said drugs.

later, a couple of hours had passed, and unfortunately, we ran into him again. this time, it was on an extremely busy road (still in Jama El Fana). he immediately followed us and started yelling again ‘you racist. you have wife and you racist. come here now.’ and he moved toward the restaurant we were literally trying to go into. he squared up to me and put his finger on my chest and said ‘you go NOW. GO NOW’ and more things in Arabic, shouting. my wife was worried so we just quickly went into the restaurant as we are so confused by this behaviour!

for context, i am half English but no one can tell as i look completely East Asian. so i believe he was targeting me as we didn’t see many other EA tourists or men around. it was really strange and now im worried about walking anywhere in the area, as he could have a knife or anything. and locals didn’t care. i asked the restaurant staff for help and they said they cannot help because the guy has nothing to do with them. i called tourism police and they did not pick up. i asked my hotel and they couldn’t get in touch with tourism police either.

the next two days we have group activities planned, but im very perplexed on what we can do safely for the rest of the holiday. it’s been less than 12 hours and im ready to go home.