A Moroccan court condemned the feminist activist Ibtissame Lachgar to 30 months in prison on Wednesday, Wednesday, September 3 for “affected by Islam,” said one of his lawyers who expressed his desire to appeal.
The 50 -year -old activist, known for his commitment to individual freedoms, was prosecuted for having published at the end of July on social networks a photo of her dressed in a shirt where the word “Allah” appeared (“God”) followed by the phrase “is lesbian” (“is lesbian”), judged “offensive towards God” according to the Maracan justice.
During the hearing before the Rabat Court of first instance, Ibtissame Lachgar said that his shirt resumed “a feminist slogan that has existed for years against sexist ideologies and violence against women (…) and has nothing to do with Islam.”
The activist was sentenced to 30 months in prison and has to pay a fine of 50,000 Moroccan Dirhams, or around 5,000 euros, said Mohamed Khattab. He added that he wanted to appeal this decision and worry about the “psychic” state of his client, imprisoned since August 12 in the prison of El Arjat, near Rabat.
“At the legal level, there is now the law on alternative sanctions. We will submit an application in this context,” said the lawyer.
“Race to freedom of expression”
At the end of August, Naima El Guellaf, lawyer of Mrs. Lachgar, said her client was “treated for cancer and should undergo a critical operation in September in his left arm according to his doctors who alert the amputation if the surgical intervention is not carried out.”
In the announcement of the verdict, his family and some relatives melted in court. “It is a shocking verdict,” “This judgment is an attack on freedom of expression,” Hakim Sikouk, president of the Broger Human Rights Association (AMDH), told AFP.
The image of the activist dressed in the shirt in question was accompanied on the social networks of a text that qualifies Islam, “like any religious ideology”, “fascist, falocrat and misogynist.”
This publication has aroused strong reactions on social networks, ranging from calls to their arrest to threats of rape and stone.
Source: BFM TV
