CAIRO: A Moroccan journalist faces a new challenge after three top conservative clerics in the country have called for the death penalty against Mokhtar al-Ghzioui said that laws penalizing sex outside of marriage should be ended. Ghzioui, the editor of the daily al-Ahdath al-Maghribia newspaper, went public and supported statements made by Khadija Riyadi, the head of the Moroccan Association for Human Rights, who on June 18 called for the government to end article 490 of the penal code, which criminalizes sex outside of marriage. The result has seen three Islamic leaders in the country demand that the journalist be put to death for his comments. Ghzioui said last week that he would not have a problem if his mother or sister were to have consensual sexual relations outside of wedlock. His point was that Morocco should not criminalize the act, arguing that it was a personal freedom. But the result has led to cleric Abdullah Nahari in Oujda close to the Algerian border to post a Youtube video on June 28 calling him a “dyouth,” or someone who allows his wife to commit adultery. The prosecutor has called for him to be charged with inciting violence. Elsewhere Abou Hafs, Omar el-Heddouchi and Hassan al-Kettani, the three most prominent ultra-conservative Salafist clerics in Morocco, also voiced their support for the embattled shiekh in Oujda, echoing his calls for death against the editor. “The arrogance of the secularists has become intolerable,” said Kettani. “A dyouth tells the world he would let his family sin and is then denounced by a sheikh and then it is the latter who is threatened with prison?” The ongoing battle has highlighted the growing strength and power of the ultra-conservatives in the country, while many activists fear that the idea of freedom is becoming grayed in the country as a result.
