‘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. During the Freedom Lecture, her sister Siham Lachgar speaks about political prisoners in Morocco.

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 Siham Lachgar speaks about the personal costs of activism, the reality of imprisonment and the ways in which systems of power seek to govern and silence critical voices.

Following this program, an evening program will take place focusing on the relationship between blasphemy, state power, and women’s rights.