Join on WhatsApp
Join on Telegram
Taroudante -Lahcen Haddad, Morocco’s Minister of Tourism, has called for the de-criminalization of both homosexuality and consensual sex out of wedlock.
In an exclusive interview with CNN Arabic at the headquarters of his ministry in Morocco in late October 2015, the minister said that his party, the Popular Movement, a traditionalist party, defends individual freedoms.
The minister stated that his push to de-criminalize homosexuality and consensual sex out of wedlock falls within the framework of protecting individual freedoms. He stressed the need to find a solution in the new Penal Code that meet the demands of all stakeholders.
The minister has no problem with same sex couples as long as they do not display their sexual orientation publicly to provoke a reaction.
“We do not accept a display of one’s sexual tendencies for provocation, but if homosexuality is a personal orientation, practiced in private places, it falls within one’s personal freedom,” Haddad said.
Minister Haddad, who referred to himself as a modern liberalist, said that the debate on the issue of homosexuality in Morocco “has not yet been opened.” He expressed his opposition to any leniency for perpetrators of crimes of honor, urging the judges to apply the law as it is.
Currently, any sexual relations out of wedlock are punishable by law in Morocco. Article 489 of the Moroccan Penal Code punishes r sexual activities between people of the same by six months to three years imprisonment.
