Several women’s rights activists have been receiving an alarming number of threats and intimidation online, which has pushed them to file complaints against the anonymous assailants.
As the country is on the path to overhauling its family code, activists advocating for change find themselves in danger.
On March 28th, an Instagram account under the pseudonym “hydra21” shared a chilling death list containing the names of twenty-two Moroccan women’s rights activists.
The threats haven’t stopped at names on a list; they extended to personal messages containing explicit threats of rape and sexual assault.
These threats, which have been forged under the guise of protecting “Islamic values” and combating alleged attempts to “destroy the fabric of Moroccan society,” struck fear in the hearts of the activists, who consequently shared a joint statement urging local authorities to take immediate action.
The statement that was shared and co-written with the other victims stated that they “strongly condemn these acts of extreme violence that are severely punishable by law.”
The statement highlighted that the activists filed multiple complaints, urging local authorities to take immediate action and investigate the incident, stressing that “The safety and well-being of feminist activists, and their families, must be ensured, and violence should not be tolerated.”
In a video she shared on her Instagram account, Sarah Benmoussa, one of the activists on the list, emphasized that authorities need to take the measures needed against these individuals.
“Digital violence can develop into something more, we can not turn a blind eye to this, as it can encourage others to do the same or worse things.”
Mariyem Gamar, founder of the feminist platform Kasbah Tal’Fin, also expressed worry and stated that “it is worrying how people with extremist and terrorist beliefs feel comfortable enough to share such things on social media.”
Don’t give credibility and value to those so called feminist activists as the majority of Moroccans are aware of their evil purposes. Those activists they don’t want just equality between men and women but they want women supremacy and control over men. They want to humiliate men.