A Moroccan feminist battling cancer has been sentenced to two and a half years in prison for blasphemy, a ruling that has ignited outrage over free speech in the North African Kingdom.
On Wednesday evening, a court in Rabat convicted Ibtissame (Betty) Lachgar, 50, of "offending Islam" after she posted a photo on social media wearing a T-shirt that read "Allah is lesbian."
She was fined 50,000 dirhams (about $5,100) in addition to the prison term. The decision followed a monthlong trial that began after her arrest in early August, when the image resurfaced online.
"This is horrible and shocking. I did not expect a verdict so severe," said her lawyer, Mohamed Khattab, who noted that under a newly enacted law, Lachgar qualified for alternative sentencing.
"She met all the conditions, yet it was not applied," Khattab stressed.
The activist is undergoing cancer treatment and could face the amputation of her arm if urgent surgery is not carried out, according to her family and supporters.
They warn that the prison term, coupled with her medical condition, could pose life-threatening consequences.
Her defence has appealed, arguing that her photo was taken abroad, raising constitutional and international concerns about applying Moroccan blasphemy laws extraterritorially.
Lawyers also denounced the torrent of threats she received online, including a bounty on her head, which authorities have not pursued.
Prosecutors insisted that due process had been respected and that the social media post constituted a public offence under the penal code.
Lachgar's conviction has divided Morocco, a Muslim majority country where blasphemy is still considered a red line.
"She deserves accountability… not for holding a different opinion, but for deliberately insulting God Almighty with words that should neither be spoken nor heard," Mustafa Ramid, a former justice minister from the Islamist Justice and Development Party (PJD), wrote ahead of her trial.
A trained psychologist, she co-founded the Movement for Personal Freedoms (MALI) in 2009 and has long been a polarising figure in the North African kingdom.
Until now, she had never been imprisoned, despite staging actions that challenged conservative norms, from distributing banned abortion pills and organising a "kiss-in" outside parliament to supporting a Dutch abortion boat and reclaiming public spaces through civil disobedience.
Inspired by radical feminist movements such as Femen, she has made provocation part of her strategy.
"Rights and freedoms have to be taken," she told the Moroccan weekly TelQuel in 2020. "It is not by acting cautiously, politely, or politically correctly that progress will be made."
Her first prominent action, a Ramadan picnic in 2009, led to her first detention.
But her confrontational style has often alienated potential allies.
The feminist group KifMama KifBaba distanced itself from her approach, while still condemning her imprisonment.
"We do not share her radical methods," the group said, "but freedom of expression must be protected, and prison should not be the response to disagreements."
Many on the Moroccan left consider her latest act unnecessarily provocative, even as they oppose her prosecution.
Her T-shirt sparked outrage among conservatives and Islamists. To her critics, the stunt was needlessly inflammatory in a society where surveys consistently show strong religious devotion.
"Defending freedom of expression does not mean accepting insults to religious foundations," wrote Hassan Al-Maws, a scholar of Islamic studies, noting that "God" comes first in Morocco's national motto: "God, Homeland, King."
Still, human rights groups have rallied to her defence, considering the sentence harsh and an intimidation to dissents and activists across the country.
The Moroccan Association for Human Rights (AMDH), the country's largest rights organisation, called her detention "a violation of freedom of expression." Its president, Souad Brahma, has joined her legal defence team.
International support has been more forceful. Protests demanding her release have taken place outside Moroccan consulates in Paris, London, and Algeciras, Spain.
Online, the hashtag #FreeBetty has gained traction, with an international petition surpassing 3,700 signatures.
"A sad condemnation. (...) Meanwhile, people who threatened her life are still free. Freedom of speech is not a crime," said Rim Akrache, a feminist activist, after the trial.
For her family, who left the court crying on Wednesday, the sentence is devastating. "This is cruel and disproportionate, (...) an inhumane injustice," said her sister, Siham.
"Betty only wanted to provoke thought and debate, not insult anyone," Siham added.