German Artist Fights Deportation from Morocco over Holocaust Memorial Project

Oivier Bienkowski contests the decision notified to him to leave Morocco for "illegal stay". The German who claims to be an artist promises to sue the Moroccan authorities. According to Article19.ma, he says he is able to obtain an investor visa in Morocco and does not intend to leave the country.

In addition to challenging the decision of the Moroccan authorities, the owner of the Marrakech Holocaust Memorial and his lawyers are demanding the sum of 100,000 euros as compensation for his destroyed installations. "Art is not a crime and requires no authorization. Once the lawyer has won this case, we will rebuild the Holocaust Memorial..." he stressed in a video.

Despite the threats of expulsion against him, Oivier Bienkowski has continued his international fundraising campaign by playing the anti-Semitism card. According to his lawyer, he was in the process of creating an artistic work depicting the massacre of the Holocaust suffered by the Jews under the Nazi regime in Germany.

For his part, Omar Arbib, a member of the Central Bureau of the Moroccan Association of Human Rights, in statements collected by Article19.ma, believes that the so-called Memorial is not a synagogue or a place of worship for its demolition to be immoral. For him, it is a blatant political instrumentalization of the Nazi crimes and a cover-up of other crimes.