Betty's Fight: Moroccan Activist in Prison for Free Speech

0:00It's February 27th. This episode is brought to you by NordVPN, fast, reliable online privacy, links in the episode description. Here's your UK news in two minutes. Feminist activist Iptismé Lashkar, known as Betty, sits in a Moroccan prison serving a two and a half year sentence. She landed there last September after posting a photo on Facebook wearing a t-shirt with a provocative message about Islam. She's charged her with offending the religion, stemming from her show of support for two LGBTQ activists in Iran basing death sentences. Her health has taken a sharp turn for the worse, inside Salay Prison near Rabad. A bone cancer survivor with a prosthetic arm, she fractured her elbow during detention, and now doctors warned she could lose the arm without specialist. Care. She's been treated only with basic pain killers, sleeping on a cold floor without a mattress for six months. Many members and lawyers are pleading for her immediate release, highlighting the inhumane

1:00conditions like solitary confinement that have battered. Her physically and mentally. As a longtime advocate for women's and LGBTQ rights in Morocco, she's organized protests like public kissons and pro-choice events, drawing both. Support and fierce backlash online. Legal experts argue her conviction violates Morocco's 2011 Constitution and international treaties on free speech that the country has. A coalition including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch backs her, with a petition nearing 400,000 signatures, the biggest, against Moroccan authorities in a decade. Meanwhile, a United Nations working group formed in February to review her case, as global calls grow louder for King Muhammad VI to intervene, and secure her freedom before it's too late.