Not only will Ibtissame Lachgar face prosecution by the Moroccan courts for "insulting Islam," but she will also await her trial behind bars. Brought before the prosecutor of the Rabat Court of First Instance on Tuesday, August 12, the 50-year-old feminist activist was held in police custody for 48 hours before being placed in pretrial detention at a prison near Arjate, where she spent her first night in a cell. The prosecutor's office had requested her arrest on Sunday, after she posted on X on July 31 a photo of herself wearing a T-shirt with the words "Allah is lesbian."
The decision by the public prosecutor's office, which came as a "shock" to the activist's family, opened a new chapter in a case that has been widely discussed in Morocco and abroad. Lachgar now faces up to five years in prison, depending on how the judge interprets Article 267-5 of the Moroccan Penal Code, which punishes anyone who offends Islam.
Yet the charges against her came as a surprise, given that the women's and LGBTQ+ rights activist had been posting photos of herself wearing the controversial T-shirt since 2022 without any interference from the justice system. In 2021, she even appeared wearing it during an interview broadcast on the French television channel LCI.
Threats of rape and lynching
Should yet another post have gone unnoticed? That is what those close to the feminist activist believe, suggesting that her upcoming trial may be linked to the "unexpected" outcry caused this time by the controversial image. A week after it was posted on X, there had been no reaction, until a wave of anonymous accounts – mostly affiliated with the so-called Moorish identity movement, which regularly conducts cyber-harassment campaigns against feminist circles – began targeting her on August 9, even tagging the General Directorate for National Security, the Moroccan national police. In recent days, Lachgar claimed to have received numerous threats of rape and lynching.
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