Join the #Freebetty campaign by taking a stand for feminist freedom.

Visit the #FreeBetty stand to have your photo taken with our striking cardboard cutout of Betty Lachgar — a powerful symbol of resistance and courage.

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✊ Tag #FreeBetty to amplify the call for her release.

Your voice matters.

Let’s make sure Betty knows she’s not alone.

FiLiA is proud to support the global campaign to #FreeBetty for Ibtissame Betty Lachgar, a feminist, atheist, psychologist, and long-time human rights activist who has been imprisoned for “blasphemy” in Morocco. She has been sentenced to two and a half years in prison for sharing a photo on X of herself in a T-shirt that read: “Allah is lesbian” taken in London.

Betty was prosecuted for “insulting Islam”, a blasphemy charge rooted in Morocco’s oppressive religious laws. Also in Morocco, homosexuality is illegal under Article 489 of the Penal Code, which criminalizes “lewd or unnatural acts” between individuals of the same sex.

We are demanding Betty’s freedom and calling for an end to the systemic criminalization, silencing, and violence against people who question, challenge and leave religion. This is not just about a social media post or t-shirt—it’s apostophobia in action and yet another religiously-motivated attack on our collective rights to freely think, speak and express ourselves.

While she langishes in prison for a t-shirt, the thousands who issued death and rape threats against her online remain free. The decision to imprison her is particularly cruel given her fragile health. A survivor of Ewing’s sarcoma (bone cancer), Betty lives with a disability and prosthesis. Doctors warn she may lose her arm without urgent specialist care. In prison, she is in total isolation, with no mattress and limited contact with her family, worsening both her physical condition and mental health.

As her sister, Siham lachgar says:

"Why is my sister Ibtissame Betty Lachgar being subjected to harsher treatment? The only explanation is that this is punishment, not for what she has done, but for who she is and what she represents. These restrictions are not motivated by security concerns. They are a deliberate attempt to break her spirit, to silence a committed feminist activist who has spent her life defending human rights and individual freedoms. She has never incited hatred and her struggle has always been peaceful!"

Betty’s arrest is a grotesque violation of women's rights and a chilling reminder of how feminists continue to face persecution for refusing and resisting. Her lawyers will be appealing on 6 October.

Join us in demanding Betty’s freedom.

Solidarity starts at FiLiA2025 — but it doesn’t end there. Visit the Council of Ex-Muslims of Britain (CEMB) to discover concrete ways you can help: from signing petitions to contacting decision-makers, every action strengthens the call to free Betty and end the criminalisation of blasphemy.