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Homo Witch Hunt in Morocco
20 Dec 2007-
Morocco- Amid media hysteria and large and riotous anti-gay
demonstrations in Morocco, six men whom prosecutors claimed participated
in a "gay marriage" have been convicted of violating that country's law
against homosexual conduct and sent to prison.
The drama, which attracted huge national media coverage- in large
measure of an hysterically anti-gay character - took place last month in
Ksar El Kébir, a largely impoverished city of more than 100,000 halfway
between Tangier and the nation's capital of Rabat, and which is
dominated politically by the principal Islamist party, the Party of
Justice and Development, popular among Morocco's economically deprived
majority.
According to the
feisty Moroccan French-language weekly magazine Tel Quel, noted
for its progressive views, "All began when F., a local celebrity known
for his sales of alcohol, organized a private party on November 19 in a
house in the Hay Diwan neighborhood, habitually reserved for
celebrations of marriage...F. 'has the reputation of a libertine whose
comings and goings are spied on by the local population,' a local source
told us, 'and his party did not go unnoticed.'
"The party had a special aspect: it resembled a ritual ceremony, with
gnaoua entertainment and a man disguised as a woman on the dance
floor," wrote Tel Quel. (The gnaouas are a Moroccan Sufi
brotherhood, descendants of black slaves who mingle music and dance in a
way that leads to a trance-like state. They fascinated gay writers like
Paul Bowles, Brian Gysin, and William Burroughs as well as the Rolling
Stones, who in the 1970s incorporated several gnaoua songs they
considered "music to get high by" into their recordings.)
"The day after the party, anger spread throughout the city as the rumor
spread like wildfire that a 'homosexual marriage' had been organized the
night before," continued Tel Quel. "There was a chain reaction
when a video of the party was quickly posted on YouTube, and on November
21 a petition was published calling for 'the opening of an official
investigation into the celebration of a homosexual marriage'" in Ksar El
Kébir, according to Tel Quel.
The petition was signed not only by the Party of Justice and Development
and numerous local associations, but, surprisingly, also by the local
chapter of the national human rights group, the Association Marocaine
des Droits Humains (ADMH).
Much of Morocco's daily press, in publicizing the petition, deployed
huge scare headlines denouncing the "Homosexual Marriage at Ksar El
Kébir," and the following Friday - an Islamic day of prayer - after
incendiary sermons were preached in the city's mosques, a riotous crowd
of Islamist fundamentalists, estimates of whose size vary from 6,000 to
13,000, marched to the house where the supposed "gay marriage" had been
held, and attempted to ransack a supposedly gay-owned jewelry store in
the center city along the way. A video shows that some of the
demonstrators carried rifles.
"There was a distinct difference in tone between the French-language
press, which is read by the educated elites, and the Arab-language
press, which is read by the mass of the working and poorer classes,"
Catherine Graciet, a French journalist who has reported extensively from
Morocco, told this reporter by telephone from Paris. (Graciet is
co-author of an excellent book published in Paris earlier this year, "Quand
le Maroc Sera Islamiste" (éditions La Découverte), which translates
as "When Morocco Becomes Islamist").
"The French-language press was fairly neutral in reporting the events,
and even a bit disdainful of the popular hysteria around the so-called
'wedding,' saying that such matters are about people's private lives -
but the Arab-language press poured oil on the fire and was wildly
anti-homosexual in tone," Graciet said.
She added, "One of the worst of those whipping up anti-gay sentiment was
the columnist Rachid Nini in the Arab-language daily Al Massaa,
which he founded - it's normally a good and serious newspaper but with
some very conservative columnists, but in his inflamed denunciations of
homosexuals Nini, who is also the paper's directeur (boss), was
saying what majority public opinion believes."
The inflammatory press coverage was exemplified by a November 28 report
in the Islamist fundamentalist newspaper Atajdid under the
headline "ANTI-HOMOSEXUAL INTIFADA IN KSAR EL KÉBIR."
According to the newspaper, "At most of the Friday prayers, the imams of
Ksar el Kébir mosques addressed the issue of sodomy , homosexuality, and
lesbianism. Ahmad Aljabarri, the imam of Vad Al Makhazin mosque, which
turned into the convergence point for demonstrators coming from
different mosques in the city, was very frank about the gay marriage,
and said that if the wrongs and misdeeds are not corrected, a big
torment will be sent down [by God]. He said the homosexual behavior will
shake the heavens. Then he broke into tears.
"The congregation's facial gestures, and the way they shook their heads
[in agreement], demonstrated how they are ashamed, and rightfully so,
which motivated them to start a demonstration upon their departure from
the mosque, to express their anger. They chanted, 'We don't care about
money, our honor is the most important thing,' and recited religious
prayers, demanding the authorities prosecute the gays and ask God's
forgiveness for their sins.
"... According to some estimates by members of the police, some 13,000
people were marching on the streets, who were joined by a group of 600
young people coming from the north.... The emotion among demonstrators
was so high that the security forces, who were monitoring the rally,
were not able to control them. When the crowd reached the jewelry store
belonging to a prominent man in the city who is known among the people
of the city to extend financial and moral support to homosexuals, they
tried to attack the business, but the iron gates made their repeated
attempts a failure," the newspaper Atajdid concluded.
The following Wednesday, there was another anti-gay demonstration in
Ksar el Kébir of 1,000 people led by the Party of Justice and
Development.
The six men arrested have remained imprisoned since they were first
detained by the police at some point between November 23 and 25. In a
summary trial held by a "court of first instance" in Ksar el Kébir, the
men were found guilty of violating article 489 of Morocco's penal code,
which criminalizes "lewd or unnatural acts with an individual of the
same sex."
The court sentenced three defendants to six months in prison and two
defendants to four months; it sentenced the sixth, whom it also
convicted of the unauthorized sale of alcohol, to 10 months.
Abdelaziz Nouaydi, a Rabat lawyer on the men's defense team, told Human
Rights Watch staffers that the judge convicted the men even though the
prosecution presented no evidence showing that behavior violating
Article 489 had occurred, offering the video of the party as the only
evidence. The video included no indications of sexual activity.
The six defendants all pleaded innocent to offenses under the article.
At the trial, the judge refused to release the men provisionally pending
their appeals.
"These men are behind bars for private acts between consenting adults
that no government has any business criminalizing in the first place,"
said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East and North Africa director at Human
Rights Watch. "The men's rights to privacy and freedom of expression
have been violated, and the court has convicted them without apparent
evidence; they should be set free."
Asked for a comment on the Ksar el Kébir affair, the International Gay
and Lesbian Human Rights Commission (IGLHRC) told Gay City News it did
not have enough information to make a statement at this time.
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