El Mortada Iamrachen
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27 February 1987
El Mortada Iamrachen | |
|---|---|
| ⵍⵎⵓⵔⵜⴰⴷⴰ ⵉⵄⵎⵔⴰⵛⴰ (Tamazight) المرتضى إعمراشا (Arabic) | |
| Born | Abdallah El Kassimi 27 February 1987 Al-Hoceima, Rif, Morocco |
| Citizenship | Moroccan |
| Occupation | Political activist |
| Known for | Hirak Rif Movement |
El Mortada Iamrachen (27 February 1987, Al Hoceima, Morocco) (in Riffian: ⵍⵎⵓⵔⵜⴰⴷⴰ ⵉⵄⵎⵔⴰⵛⴰ, in Arabic: المرتضى إعمراشا), also known as Abdallah El Kassimi,[1] is a Moroccan political and social activist who was a member of 2011–2012 Moroccan protests and Hirak Rif Movement (2016/2017).
El Mortada Iamrachen was arrested in June 2017, and sentenced in November 2017 to five years of prison,[2] for "praising acts of terrorism" and "inciting others to commit terrorist acts",[3] despite being known as a pro-secularism activist adopting moderate stances.[4] Following this arrest, Human Rights Watch said that Iamrachen's case "may well not be a terrorism case at all, but rather a twisted effort to punish yet another leader of a protest movement that the Moroccan government seems determined to crush".[5]
El Mortada Iamrachen was born on February 27, 1987, in Al Hoceima, in Northern Morocco. He grew up in a conservative community where his father was an Imam. El Mortada studied the Qur’an and other religious texts from an early age and became a respected religious figure in his community as an Imam at a local mosque.
In 2011, he joined the 20 February protests in his hometown Al Hoceima, and discovered that there is a big variation in the political spectrum, requiring people to be tolerant and accept each other. In this context, he started to seek resources and perspectives on religion outside the Islamic faith, so he could deepen his understanding of the world and of Islam. Other members of his community did not agree with his decision to incorporate broader worldviews into his religious practices, and El Mortada was fired from his position as Imam.[6] El Mortada continued however in his path of tolerance and conflict resolution, and was one of the people nominated for 2015's Morocco Common Ground Peace Award.
In October 2016, and following the death of Mouhcine Fikri, El Mortada joined the Hirak Rif, used his Facebook page to call for peaceful protests and took part in some of them in 2016 and 2017.