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Join on Telegram Doha – The Justice and Development Party (PJD) has continued to strongly condemn what it calls the “reckless and provocative” statements by Minister of Justice Abdellatif Ouahbi, lately taking issue with his continued defense of consensual sexual relations outside marriage and mockery of what the Islamist party sees as a noble prophetic hadith.
In a statement released following an extraordinary meeting chaired by party leader Abdelilah Benkirane on Monday, the PJD general secretariat expressed its dismay at Ouahbi’s remarks on sexual ethics. The minister’s comments “despise and mock the constants and sanctities of the state and society,” it said.
The party lamented that while ordinary citizens are questioned and prosecuted on charges of insulting Islam through a post or online publication, a minister in the government of the Muslim Kingdom of Morocco is seemingly allowed to mock a noble prophetic hadith with what it described as provocative and irresponsible comments.
The PJD denounced the “low and degenerate position” the Justice Ministry has reached under Ouahbi and the current government.
It expressed surprise at the fact that Ouahbi is still minister despite his long history of controversial and offensive statements that mock Morocco’s fundamentals and disregard Moroccans’ feelings.
Previous ministers who did not commit a tenth of what Ouahbi has done in terms of provocative statements, irresponsible positions and ill-considered decisions were dismissed, the party said.
Read also: Benkirane Lashes Out at Ouahbi’s ‘Individual Freedom’ Reforms
Ouahbi, who also served as Secretary General of the Authenticity and Modernity Party (PAM), has been a vocal advocate for expanding individual freedoms in Morocco.
His proposals, including the decriminalization of consensual extra-marital sexual relations, have sparked widespread controversy.
These accusations by PJD leaders have outraged Ouahbi, Moroccan newspaper Assabah reported, quoting the minister as describing their statements as “lies and slander” and motivated by a “bad-faith” campaign to end their party’s irrelevance in Morocco’s current political scene.
He denied ever mocking or distorting any prophetic hadith, clarifying that he was referring to gaps in positive law in proving an illicit relationship between a man and a woman in a private, closed space.
Even in Islamic law, there are conditions for proving the occurrence of sexual intimacy between an unmarried couple, Ouahbi argued, adding that these conditions were set to avoid hasty and unjust rulings that could end up ruining the lives of the accused.
This is not the first time Benkirane has called for Ouahbi’s dismissal over disagreements.
In previous clashes over the law legalizing cannabis cultivation, the new family code, and the Code of Civil Procedure, the PJD leader was similarly eager to denounce the Justice Minister’s disregard for the foundations of Moroccan identity while fervently calling for his dismissal.
Tensions between Ouahbi and the PJD leadership escalated in recent months over the minister’s push to ban the requirement for couples to present marriage certificates when checking into hotels, which he described as illegal and a violation of privacy.
The PJD Women’s Wing strongly denounced this move as “irresponsible” and potentially damaging to Morocco’s moral and social fabric.
Benkirane also criticized it, saying that while he had no decisive opinion on hotel regulations, requiring marriage contracts “prevented some people from committing adultery and marital infidelity.”
