Woman jailed for carrying ‘Allah is a lesbian’ T-shirt faces having arm amputated as well being suffers
The lawyers of Ibtissame Lachgar, 50, say the Moroccan activist is being ‘arbitrarily detained’ for expressing her opinions in her own country and is deteriorating fast
Ibtissame Lachgar wears a prosthesis in her left arm(Image: @IbtissameBetty/X)
A feminist who is behind bars because she wore a T-shirt saying “Allah is a lesbian” now faces losing her arm as her health deteriorates.
Ibtissame “Betty” Lachgar, 50, was sentenced last September to two and a half years in Morocco after posting a photo of herself wearing the slogan, deemed “offensive to Islam”. The woman, who has survived bone cancer, wears a prosthesis in her left arm and suffered a fractured elbow in Salé prison near the capital of Rabat.
There are now fears that her limb is at risk of amputation unless she receives urgent specialist treatment. Her lawyer Ghizlane Mamouni described the decline in Ibtissame as “alarming” and said her prosthesis has “completely dislodged” and required “complex surgery”.
Ibtissame originally wore the T-shirt in a 2022 Facebook post in solidarity with two LGBTQ+ activists in Iran who were sentenced to death that year after being accused of promoting homosexuality, promoting Christianity and communicating with media opposed to the Islamic Republic.
She re-posted the image on July 31 on X with the caption: “In Morocco I walk around in t-shirts with messages against religions … You guys are exhausting us with your religious nonsense, your accusations. Yes, Islam, like any religious ideology, is FASCIST. PHALLOCRATIC AND MISOGYNISTIC.”
The activist said she endured days of “cyberbullying, thousands of threats of rape, death, calls for lynching and stoning,” adding that, “99% come from men. Proud of their misogynistic violence based on a religious frame of reference.”
Ensure our latest headlines always appear at the top of your Google Search by making us a Preferred Source. Click here to activate or add us as a Preferred Source in your Google search settings
Ibtissame also shared one furious response posted by the X account @moufarrid, which read: “Our country is in danger; this woman named Ibtissem Lachgar is currently free. She was born in Rabat and currently lives in Morocco. She is a feminist activist, anti-royalist, pro-secularism, and openly Islamophobic.
“Her freedom is an insult to all Moroccans. She alone is an insult to all the martyrs, our ancestors who proudly fought in the path of Allah to make this country what it is today. The authorities have still not apprehended her, and this is unacceptable. We must not let such an act go unpunished. There is nothing more sacred to Moroccans than Allah, than Islam. This woman’s place is behind bars.”
Last September, the Public Prosecutor’s Office at the Rabat Court of First Instance announced: “Following a woman’s posting of a photo on her social media account, which depicts her wearing a shirt with phrases offensive to the divine, along with a caption insulting Islam, the public prosecutor ordered an investigation.”
Her sister, Siham Lachgar, said: “My sister’s health is seriously at risk. This is extremely worrying for her and for our family. She needs very specialist care in France, and without it the consequences could be catastrophic,” reports the Daily Mail.
Avaaz – part of the ‘Free Betty’ coalition including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch – says its petition calling for Ibtissame’s release has amassed almost 400,000 signatures. The group said she was held in solitary confinement for the first five months of her sentence and sleeps on the floor with no mattress in a cold cell with a broken window.
Her legal team argue her conviction breaches Morocco’s constitutional and international commitments to freedom of expression. Ibtissame’s other lawyer, Chirinne Ardakani, said: “For six months, in blatant violation of international law, Betty has been arbitrarily detained, subjected to inhumane and degrading conditions of detention and deprived of medical care, solely for expressing her freedom of expression and opinion.”
For the latest breaking news and stories from across the globe from the Daily Star, sign up for our newsletters.
