Last January, a Muslim convert to Christianity was arrested in Fez on grounds that he was proselytizing to Muslims. The apostate was approached by two police officers while in the city’s train station. They asked him questions while searching his bag, where they found a Bible and other Christianity-related books. Suspected of proselytizing, the man was taken to the police station for interrogation. For 11 hours until he was finally released, the Christian was questioned about his beliefs, his movements, and the organization that would pay for his travels.
According to Article 220 of the Moroccan Penal Code, a proselytizer may face “six months to three years prison and a fine of 100 to 500 Dirhams” for using the “means of seduction in order to convert” a Muslim “to another religion, either by exploiting his/her weakness or his/her needs, or using for these purposes education, health, asylums and orphanage institutions.”
Holy Prophet APF says
Morocco is our friend. It is a moderate republic that just happens to be populated by Moslems. The radicalized Islamist militants who sprang up in Morocco all moved up to France to work their great religion hijacking extremism antics up there. Morocco should not be criticized, Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman would spin in their graves to know that this country is being badmouthed in an Islamophobia blog. Morocco like Turkey and Indonesia (our leader’s birthplace) is one of the few examples of the good Islam we have right now because of all the noise and confusion around extremist violence; let us preserve this. Stop.
Pere LaChaise says
Stop, Mr. Islamapologist? Facts are facts, regardless of who is saying them. Sure, Morocco is by and large an innocuous society as far as islamic extremism goes, but prejudicial enforcement of laws that target kuffar deserve every condemnation. We need to keep Morocco from sliding into the abyss of religious fanaticsm that engulfs the rest of the ‘Ummah. Can you propose a better solution than ignoring excrescences of islamic violence? Whitewashing avails no good purpose, but rather shows a prejudice of tolerance toward a force that erodes all freedom, and is proud to say it will eradicate it.
Kepha says
Morocco is another country where the cracks in Islam are appearing, with an indigenous Christian witness springing up again after a millennium of absence–thanks to apostasy from Islam. I pray that this guy who just got arrested there would be multiplied by hundreds of millions worldwide!
mortimer says
They’ll keep arresting them. International pressure will change things at the government level, but at the street level, the government will let the vigilantes impose Sharia.
Peter Buckley says
“Morocco is another country where the cracks in Islam are appearing”
Indeed. Although many on here believe that “we” are losing, it is Islam that is losing big time.
https://www.facebook.com/Exmuslims.ma
Give them your support in any way you can……
Alarmed Pig Farmer says
Facts are facts, regardless of who is saying them.
This is just not true. The guys on TV aren’t saying anything about these alleged facts, so they’re not even alleged. For example, Geraldo Rivera — a famous intellectual here in America — has never even mentioned Moslems. And all of them agree that there the tiny minority of them who do wrong are hijacking a great religion.
Whitewashing avails no good purpose, but rather shows a prejudice of tolerance toward a force that erodes all freedom, and is proud to say it will eradicate it.
The guys on TV are very tolerant, almost to a fault, and they are stalwart on retaining freedom.
Voytek Gagalka says
Marocco is not a republic but monarchy, officially named as “Kingdom of Morocco” (currently ruled by king Mohammed VI). As for their moderation, the think you mention it is mostly only history now. It was still much more moderate in 1970s than it is today.
Luke says
We know full well this man has done nothing wrong. There is a danger of a miscarriage of justice and this poor guy will end up in prison, for nothing. We should not say anything about it for political reasons?
Elaine Trewartha says
Dear Holy Prophet, your response is absurd. Bogart and Bergman! Are the facts in the article that so disturb you true or not? If this man was arrested for sharing his faith and it is against the law in Morocco to evangelize, then own it, and people can form their own judgements. What is ‘good Islam’? Islam is what Islam is, based on its texts, the life of its prophet and the behavior of Moslems in history and today. What I see in all of that is not good at all.
Angemon says
Keyword being “suspected”.
Matthieu Baudin says
Time for the Moroccan King to lead his people into the modern era by suggesting that these archaic laws against freedom of conscience and religious identification be consigned to the bin of history. Moroccan tourism agencies have highlighted the existence in the country of a Jewish minority thereby giving the impression that it is a tolerant society accepting other faiths. In actual fact the community of Jews for the entire country amounts to only two or three thousand individuals, mainly ageing folk who have decided to live out their years in Morocco; the others have long since abandoned Morocco, partly for economic opportunity abroad and partly to escape the dhimmi status that doggedly reasserts itself.