Morocco’s gay wedding scandal continues to – well, scandalize.
The story bubbled late last year, when a group of men were arrested – and later convicted – for participating in what several described as gay nuptial celebration. Horror of horrors!
Newspapers sensationalized the story, of course, smearing the names of those involved, including a litigious prosecutor, whom they accused of “sexual perversion”. Those papers should have known better to piss off a potentially gay prosecutor. They’re the meanest of the species.
Fast-forward a few months and you’ll learn that the prosecutor just won a libel suit against one of the papers, Al Massae and its editor, Rachid Ninni. Tragic.
Now, Ninni must pay six million dirhams ($816,000) and the paper has been ordered to pay a fine. While it’s unclear whether Ninni will appeal, other media folk are outraged. Journalist union leader Younes Moujahid remarked:
How about we take this to the next level?
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If we go on down this road, we’d have to shut down all the papers because the sum of six million dirhams is unreal. The Al Massae paper had already apologized to the plaintiffs. Anybody who feels offended has a right to go to court, but we call on Moroccan judges to hand down serious and fair rulings.
Moujahid also described the ruling as a “death sentence to the newspaper”. What isn’t?! Just consider it assisted suicide.
Ed
Umm, any reason you have used a picture of a Jordanian newsstand to illustrate a story about a Moroccan magazine? Just a case of ‘all them A-rabs looking the same’?
FrED
Well “all them A-rabs” might not look physically the same but their behavior sure does. Bigoted throwbacks who imprision and kill gay people.
Name one country they inhabit where gay people are consider equal citizens?
msim
“They”, dear sir Fred, “inhabit” almost all countries. There are people of Arabic descent almost in every country in the world (including very large numbers in Spain, The UK, Belgium and Canada where being gay is VERY legal).
Did you mean Muslims countries or did your prejudice get in the way of your words?
Ed
Lebanon. Jordan. There’s two. Lebanon has the largest openly gay scene in the Middle east and Jordan quietly decriminalised consensual gay sex four years ago. Seems you need to learn a little more about those ‘bigoted throwbacks’ before you start tarring everyone with the same brush. Anyway, I never said Arab countries had fluffy gay rights records, so your post is a red herring, FrED. Point still stands – sloppy journalism, which is a shame coming from this site. You’d never run a story about Spain and post a picture taken in Argentina. The Arabic writing on the newsstand reads ‘Jordan First’, so this isn’t simple nitpicking. But then I suppose we should just be thankful you didn’t run a picture of men riding camels, shouldn’t we?