Rabat – PJD Minister of Employment Mohamed Yatim has opened up about his controversial date.
A 28-second-long video showing Yatim holding hands with a woman in Paris opened the door for rounds of criticism and controversy.
In an interview with news outlet Al Omk Almaghribi, Yatim spoke about the video and his relationship with the unidentified woman.
Yatim said their relationship was “legitimate” and known to her family.
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“Since the engagement ceremony, I have been visiting her family for religious and social events. It is not a secret, even my family knows about it,” the minister said.
Yatim, who had already proposed to the lady, is awaiting divorce papers to end his current marriage.
Defending himself and his fiancee, Yatim said that the video dates back to Ramadan, the Islamic holy month of fasting, which fell in May and June in 2018.
He noted that they met for dinner “during the month of Ramadan in a restaurant and we met in Paris.”
He explained that they were not traveling or living together, emphasizing that her parents would have been the first to react if “they had thought that our relationship was not serious.”
“Breaking the fast in Ramadan in summer in Europe is late, and the same thing for dinner, which is at the same time a pre-dawn meal,” he said.
He continued to say that there is nothing unusual in him accompanying his fiancee to the building where she lives, because they finished their dinner late.
Yatim, a member of the ruling Moroccan Islamist party (PJD), also explained his choice to marry a woman who does not wear a hijab.
He said, “The hijab was previously associated with organizational or kinetic affiliation and is no longer the same.”
He added that hijab is “no longer a criterion for religiosity and moral obligation.”
Yatim described his future second wife as “religious.” He added that she is looking forward to improve her religious practice, taking into account and agreeing that the “legal status of her future husband requires a gradual shift in this level.”
According to several news outlets, Yatim met his future wife while she was nursing him after he was injured with a fracture earlier this year.
The woman is allegedly a 30-year-old psychotherapist and a nurse.
The 62-year-old minister faced rounds of criticism in July when Moroccans accused him of being in a polygamous marriage.
In response, Yatim condemned the act of polygamy, saying that he would never engage in it, no matter the circumstances.
