Trial of Moroccan feminist activist accused of ‘offending Islam’ postponed

The trial of a Moroccan feminist activist accused of “offending Islam” opened on Wednesday but was immediately postponed until August 27 at the defence’s request, her lawyer told AFP.

Ibtissame Lachgar, a 50-year-old clinical psychologist, was arrested Sunday after posting online late last month a picture of herself wearing a T-shirt with the word “Allah” in Arabic followed by “is lesbian”.

The picture was accompanied by text saying Islam was “like any religious ideology… fascist, phallocratic and misogynistic”.

Lachgar’s lawyer, Naima Elguellaf, said she had requested the postponement to give her time to prepare a defence.

She also asked that her client be provisionally released, though the court has not yet ruled on that request.

Elguellaf cited Lachgar’s health, with a friend of the defendant describing her as a “cancer survivor who requires treatment”.

Lachgar’s post drew a strong reaction from the public, with many calling for her arrest under a provision of the penal code that 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 offence is committed in public, “including by electronic means”.

In 2009, Lachgar founded the Alternative Movement for Individual Liberties (MALI), known for holding a picnic during Ramadan that year to challenge a law criminalising breaking the fast in public without a valid religious reason.

MALI has led several other campaigns against violence towards women and against child sexual abuse.

Lachgar has had previous run-ins with the authorities, getting arrested in 2016 for disturbing public order and in 2018 amid a campaign in support of abortion rights, though she was not prosecuted in those cases.

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