Freedom Lecture: The Price of Activism

‘Allah is Lesbian’, those words appeared on a T-shirt worn by Ibtissame ‘Betty’ Lachgar in London, in protest and in solidarity with two lesbian activists who had been sentenced to death in Iran. When she set foot in her home country, Morocco, Lachgar was arrested and sentenced to two and a half years in prison for blasphemy.

Morocco’s long history of political protest and dissent has an equally long record of state repression, which includes the political imprisonment of activists, journalists, and critics of the authorities. For decades, human rights organisations such as Amnesty International and Association Marocaine des Droits Humains (AMDH) have documented cases in which individuals have been prosecuted and detained for peacefully expressing dissenting views.

In this Freedom Lecture her lawyer Ghizlane Mamouni delivers a message on behalf of Betty, while speaks about the personal costs of activism, the way the law is used in Morocco to crack down on dissent, and the ways in which systems of power seek to govern and silence critical voices.

Speakers: Ghizlane Mamouni, Betty Lachgar’s lawyer and human rights activist; Yasmin Rehman, Human rights activist, writer and researcher; Maryam Namazie, Award winning Iranian-born campaigner and writer living in the UK and Yassin Boutayeb, journalist at de Volkskrant

Programme editor: Senna Felius

Moderator: Bahram Sadeghi

In cooperation with: Amnesty International

Supported by: Vfonds

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