Ex-Muslims of North America (EXMNA) strongly condemns the recent sentencing of Moroccan activist Ibtissame “Betty” Lachgar to 30 months’ imprisonment.
Betty was accused of “offending Islam” for wearing a T-shirt that read “Allah is lesbian” and posting a photo of it on X. In addition to the prison sentence, she was fined the equivalent of about $5,500 USD. The verdict came on the very same day her trial began in earnest.
Betty’s imprisonment is a grievous injustice directed against someone who has spent her life speaking truth to power. A feminist and humanist activist, she is the co-founder of the Mouvement alternatif pour les libertés individuelles (MALI), an organization advocating for individual rights in Morocco. She is additionally a cancer survivor suffering from long-term complications that stem from her cancer, and the Moroccan court system refused to grant her pretrial release for medical care.
Betty’s treatment at the hands of the Moroccan judicial system, along with the extraordinary speed with which this verdict was reached, make clear that this case is about punishing dissent more than anything else. Betty has done nothing other than violate an absurd law whose very existence violates international human rights law, and, according to her friends and family, she has received thousands of death and rape threats since her arrest.
EXMNA calls on Moroccan authorities to do the right thing, reverse this conviction, and release Betty immediately. She must also be allowed to receive the medical treatment she urgently needs, and Moroccan authorities must further repeal the draconian blasphemy restrictions that made this injustice possible to begin with.