Article 489 of the Moroccan penal code punishes homosexuality with up to three years in prison, and now six young men may be facing that full sentence after the father of one of them called the police on the whole group, accusing the other five of "coercing" his son into deviant acts. So, Anita Bryant's vile "recruitment" allegations in a fez.
They were also arrested on charges of public drunkenness and prostitution, the latter of which is often tacked on due to the mistaken belief that money is the only motivator for gay sex, not pleasure or love.
Said Khadija Riyadi, a member and former president of The Moroccan Association of Human Rights (AMDH),
There is a lot of hypocrisy here. They know that pre-marital sex is very common here. They know there are openly operating [brothels] and that police even profit from that. And we still sometimes arrest people for sexual crimes. It's hypocrisy[…]The authorities generally from what I see let the foreigners do what they want when they are gay. It happens [that they are arrested too], but generally they are indulgent.
Last year a Spanish pedophile was released from jail which sparked a protest of thousands, and last fall a girl committed suicide after being forced to marry her rapist, a marriage which likely ocurred because it exonerates the rapist from his crime under Article 475 of the Moroccan penal code. Perhaps Morocco isn't the best country to be legislating on sex crimes.
