A retrial of a Moroccan feminist jailed for "offending Islam" over an online post began on Monday, October 6, an Agence France-Presse journalist at the court said. Ibtissame Lachgar was sentenced to 30 months in prison last month after posting online a picture of herself wearing a T-shirt with the word "Allah" in Arabic followed by "is lesbian." The 50-year-old clinical psychologist known for her rights activism in Morocco was arrested in August.
Her lawyers appealed her sentence, which also came with a fine of 50,000 dirhams ($5,500). Human Rights Watch last month called on the North African kingdom to overturn Lachgar's sentence, saying it was a "a huge blow to free speech." Lachgar's post was accompanied by text saying Islam was "like any religious ideology... fascist, phallocratic and misogynistic." It drew sharp backlash, with many calling for her arrest.
On Monday, she told a judge again that the message on her T-shirt was a feminist slogan that had nothing to do with Islam in particular. The kingdom's penal code carries a sentence of up to two years in prison for "anyone who offends the Islamic religion." That sentence can be raised to five years if the offense is committed in public, "including by electronic means."
Lachgar's lawyers had previously requested her release on medical grounds, saying she needed to receive treatment for cancer. Lachgar needed "critical surgery on her left arm in September," the lawyers said in August, adding that her doctors "warned of amputation if the surgery is not carried out."
The prosecution on Monday requested that the conviction be upheld and the sentence increased, saying Lachgar's post was a threat to public order and the "spiritual well-being of Moroccans."