It was at least the second demonstration by the feminist group Femen in a
Muslim country, after Tunisia in 2013 where three European activists
were sentenced to four months in jail. They were released after serving
one month.
A woman
holds rainbow flags for the grand entry at the International Gay Rodeo
Association's Rodeo In the Rock in Little Rock, Arkansas, United States
April 26, 2015. REUTERS/Lucy Nicholson
Morocco expelled two French
women activists who bared their breasts and kissed each other outside
an ancient mosque on Tuesday in a protest about gay rights in a country
where homosexuality is illegal.
It was at least the second demonstration by the feminist group Femen
in a Muslim country, after Tunisia in 2013 where three European
activists were sentenced to four months in jail. They were released
after serving one month.
"This act of provocation was an unacceptable offence to Moroccan society," the interior ministry said in a statement.
"The two were arrested at Rabat international airport after they filmed obscene scenes."
The
women were apparently on their way home when they were arrested.
Authorities added they were barred from returning to Morocco. Their
actions probably breached Moroccan "public indecency" laws.
Hassan Mosque,
where the protest happened, is a medieval site visited by thousands of
tourists every year, but it no longer functions as an active place of
worship.
"I know Morocco could be more dangerous than Tunisia,"
one of the protesters, who identified herself only as Marguerite, told
Reuters earlier on Tuesday in the building's courtyard in the capital,
Rabat.
The protest may put pressure on the
Islamist-led administration from conservative and religious groups who
were already upset over a recent concert by U.S. singer Jennifer Lopez in Morocco that they deemed provocative.
Morocco
has an Islamic-inspired penal code that bans sex outside marriage and
forbids Moroccans from drinking alcohol, but a generally more tolerant
approach gives young people more freedom than many other countries in
the region.
That has partly helped Morocco attract
tourists, especially from western Europe, providing much-needed foreign
currency and jobs to an economy that lacks the oil riches of
neighbouring Algeria.
However, homosexuality remains more sensitive than sex outside marriage and drinking alcohol.
Last
march, a court in the Mediterranean city of al Hoceima sentenced two
men, accused of consensual homosexual activity, to one year and six
months in prison.
Morocco’s 2011 Constitution states, in article 24: "All persons have the right to protection of their private life."
The
right, absent in the previous constitution, should lead to the
abolition of the law criminalising consensual same-sex conduct, Human
Rights Watch said in a statement on the al Hoceima trial.
