Human Rights Watch criticized the Moroccan authorities after sentencing recently a Moroccan politician and a student, who were caught red-handed having sex in a car in the Moroccan city of Al Hoceima, for six months for one and one year for the other, who was also convicted of attempted bribery.
One of the two “lovers” is a well-known on-term elected local representative at the municipal council of Imzouren, representing the National Rally of Independents party (RNI), part of the current government coalition.
Back last December, the RNI politician and his partner were arrested following a patrolling police car noticing strange movements inside a random parked car. This raised the authorities’ attention vis-à-vis the car in the first place, before they discovered two males having sex inside it.
Human Rights Watch and Moroccan Aswat Group for Sexual Minorities reacted to the sentencing saying that the two Moroccans were having a “consensual homosexual activity” and that they are serving prison terms after “a trial that seems to have been unfair.”
“The First Instance Court in the Mediterranean city of al Hoceima convicted the two defendants of sodomy in a very brief trial held only five days after their December 13, 2014 arrest,” Human Rights Watch stressed.
“The al Hoceima Appeals Court upheld the conviction for committing a “deviant sexual act with a member of the same sex” (penal code article 489) and “public indecency” (article 483), but reduced the sentences for both men from three years in prison and a fine to six months for one and one year for the other, who was also convicted of attempted bribery (article 251),” the Human Rights body added.
The Moroccan Times.
