In recent days it has become clearer thanks to the story in some newspapers the story of Ikram Nazih, a 23-year-old student with dual Italian and Moroccan citizenship who was sentenced in Morocco to 3 and a half years in prison for outrage against Islam. The case was resumed by the deputy of the Lega Massimiliano Capitanio, who said he wanted to file a parliamentary question and who asked the Italian government to officially intervene for the release of the student.
There is not much news on the case of Ikram Nazih: she was born to Moroccan parents in Vimercate, in the province of Monza and Brianza, and studied law at the University of Marseille, in France. On June 20, according to the main reports of newspapers and news agencies, she was stopped at the airport of Casablanca, Morocco, where she had arrived for a vacation. A week later, on June 28, she was sentenced in the first instance to a three-and-a-half-year prison sentence and a fine, on charges of publicly offending Islam, which is the state religion in Morocco. . The Moroccan penal code provides for a sentence of up to 2 years in prison for anyone who offends the Islamic religion, and the penalty can be up to 5 years if the violation is committed in public or through social networks.
The cause of Nazih’s conviction would be the publication, in 2019, of a post on Facebook in which the Sura (i.e. the chapter, roughly) 108 of the Koran was rewritten with blasphemous words. The post would later be deleted, but reported by a Moroccan religious association to the Rabat authorities: the arrest warrant pending on Nazih would therefore be activated when the student arrived in Morocco.
Republic reports the words of Armando Barucco, Italian ambassador to Morocco (“we are following the case which is particularly delicate”) and adds that the Italian consulate in Marrakech “is in contact with the girl’s family and tries to gather information, in absence up to this point moment of official communications from Morocco ».
There are not many other news on the case: according to what the deputy Capitanio wrote, the student received a visit from the honorary consul and the consul general in prison. To her lawyer, the student would later deny having written that message on Facebook saying that she had received it from some of her contacts and only shared it. Pending the appeal sentence that could overturn the first instance one, some members of the Islamic community have asked that, as per tradition, the king of Morocco Mohammed VI grants Nazih the pardon on the occasion of the feast of Eid al-Adha, the feast of the sacrifice which will take place on 20 July.
The deputy of the Capitanio League used the case of Ikram Nazih to criticize Islam: «The news coming from Morocco is of an unprecedented severity and requires immediate and decisive action. After the tragic case of Saman (Saman Abbas, the 18-year-old Pakistani girl who went missing for more than two months and which is suspected to have been killed and buried in the fields behind the house, near Reggio Emilia, ed) we are facing another episode which, if confirmed, demonstrates the incompatibility of Islamic extremism with our democracy, ”he said.
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