Moroccan women lodge official complaints against comedian Taliss

Moroccan citizens are lodging official complaints against Moroccan comedian Abdelali Lamhar, known as “Taliss,” who drew tremendous outrage  after making improper remarks about Moroccan women during a comedy performance.

Choosing to speak under the condition of anonymity, one of the complainant women who lives abroad told Hespress EN that she filed a complaint on the “Chikaya” platform under the Moroccan Ministry of Culture.

“I encouraged other women and girls to do the same by expressing themselves in their own words,” she further explained, as the complaint platform demands a written text explaining the details of the complaint and its background.

She provided Hespress EN with the official text of her complaint, in which she described the Taliss joke as rude, and spoke in the name of Moroccan women residing in France, to say that they are not accepting any apology from Taliss, for how offensive his joke is towards Moroccan women everywhere.

“We call for a punishment according to law and the standards of culture and art, to make an example out of him for anyone who would ever attempt to promote an offensive image of Morocco and Moroccan women,” said the complaint

She explained that she did not file a complaint in court, saying that she could have done it if she was in Morocco.

The Chikaya portal states that complaints will not be handled if the subject matter has been presented to the justice system and a judgment with the force of order needed by it has been issued.

The complaint will not be considered if it does not interfere with the administration’s scope of competence and includes insults and defamation of an individual or an entity.

However, many other Moroccan women residing in the country also took to the online complaint platform, to lodge official requests of action to competent authorities against the comedian.

In addition, the Regional Coordination of the Moroccan Forum for Human Rights in Marrakech denounced in the strongest terms the comedian’s “immoral behavior” in a statement.

Hespress EN tried to reach out to Taliss, but the comedian declined to comment.

While performing at the National Association for Media and Publishers’ honoring ceremony for the Moroccan national football team, the comedian joked that the team’s wins at the Qatar World Cup allowed him “to hug many women around him at cafes.”

“If the team had gotten to the semi-finals, I would have impregnated one,” Taliss told the crowd, among whom were politicians, athletes, and media figures, led by Minister of Youth and Culture Mehdi Bensaïd, and President of the Royal Football Federation Faouzi Lekjaa.

Moroccan women and men strongly criticized the “joke,” condemning the comedian for his devastating statement that to many, condones “rape culture and sexual harassment.”