Moroccan Feminist Writer Faces Death Threats Over Book Event in Melilla

At the announcement of the writer’s press conference, who is also a militant in the fight for women’s rights, comments multiplied on social networks. "She is a person known for her Islamophobic statements. She claims that the hijab oppresses Muslim women, degrades them and makes them invisible," commented Mohamed Ahmed Moh, president of the CIM. He sent a letter of protest to the Councilor for Culture, one of the authorities administering the city. After this denunciation by the CIM, there was an outpouring of hatred against Zoubida Boughaba on the web.

However, she did not give in to the intimidation. She hosted her press conference during which she presented her book to an audience in Melilla, without the slightest incident. Only, the writer "remains particularly touched by the movement of hatred of which she was a victim".

"I am shocked to see so much gratuitous hatred. I am neither Islamophobic, nor against the hijab. Through my work as an intercultural mediator, and as a collaborator with the Red Cross, I spend my time doing mediation, to enable veiled women to find work, or to be accepted as they are in Spanish society," Zoubida Boughaba confided to Le360. She literally brushed aside the accusations against her person.

"It is surprising to see that freedom of expression is more open in Morocco than in Melilla, a supposedly European city," the writer indignantly. She had presented her book at several conferences in Rabat, Marrakech, or even Al Hoceima.