Ibtissame “Betty” Lachgar has spent more than a decade challenging Morocco’s religious, social and legal red lines, and has repeatedly found herself in trouble with the authorities for it.
The psychologist, born in Rabat in August 1975, is best known as co-founder of the Alternative Movement for Individual Liberties (MALI), a group demanding freedom of conscience, sexual rights, abortion, LGBT+ rights and full separation of religion and state.
Lachgar studied psychology, criminology and victimology in Paris and is completing a doctorate in psychoanalysis.
The daughter of a trade unionist and human rights defender, she is openly atheist, a stance that is itself controversial in Morocco.
Her first major confrontation with authorities came on September 13, 2009, when she and fellow activists organised a “Ramadan picnic” to protest Article 222 of the penal code, which punishes breaking the fast in public.
Police stopped participants at Mohammedia station before the event began, sending them back.
On September 17, Lachgar went to the Mohammedia police after finding out officers had visited her Rabat home two days before. She was released but told she might be called in again later.
In October 2012, she invited the Dutch group Women on Waves to dock a ship in Morocco to promote safe abortion, but the navy blocked it from entering port.
Moroccan authorities refused to let the ship dock in the harbor, where counter-protests were taking place on shore. They also reportedly closed the port for “military maneuvers,” keeping journalists out.
According to the Associated Press, the group Women on Waves had expected this move and positioned their sailboat in the harbor days earlier. No charges were filed, but officials later boarded the yacht and escorted it out of the marina.
In October 2013, she organised a “kiss-in” outside parliament in Rabat in support of teenagers arrested for posting a kissing photo on Facebook. Both actions triggered fierce political and religious backlash.
On September 8, 2016, Lachgar was arrested in Rabat after an altercation with a street vendor while trying to stop children from working late at night.
Police, recognising her as a MALI activist, charged her and a companion with public drunkenness and disturbing public order.
During custody, she said she was sexually assaulted by officers. She spent about 48 hours in detention before the prosecutor dismissed the case on September 10.
Two years later, in August 2018, she went to a police station in Rabat to report threats and an attack by local youths who disapproved of her activism. However, the police accused her of being drunk and causing a disturbance.
She spent 24 hours in custody before being released without prosecution.
Lachgar’s activism has kept her in the spotlight. She joined the 2011 pro-democracy February 20 movement, campaigned against Morocco’s laws criminalising sex outside marriage, and has been an advocate for LGBT+ rights and reproductive freedoms.
Lachgar is also a member of the Collective for the Abolition of Pornoprostitution (CAPP) and a sharp critic of what she calls “state feminism.”
Her most recent and highly publicised arrest came on Sunday, after she posted a photo of herself wearing a t-shirt reading “Allah is lesbian,” a move widely condemned by the public.
Lachgar says she received thousands of threats in the days after the post, including death and rape threats.
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