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| July 13th, 2005 (a beautiful tale borrowed from a very original blog) |
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| Rabat - Nadia Yassine came to court with all the fanfare befitting a star. Her lips taped to symbolize government attempts to silence her, the Muslim activist was mobbed by hundreds of supporters and 170 defense attorneys. |
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| "Why does the lady have a tape on her mouth? » asks Leeloo. |
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| "Her name is Nadia Yassine, she’s a witch. The king taped the big X upon her mouth to silence her. He is too afraid that she might cast a spell on him." |
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| "Is she an evil witch? » |
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| "No, Leeloo." |
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| Yassine is not a bad witch, nor more good then other witches. Witches are witches because they think and act in different ways than other people. When people see a witch behaving differently, they get scared. If that witch does things that help them then they would say she’s a good witch, otherwise, they would say that she’s evil.The king doesn’t like what Yassine did so he thinks she’s evil, he wants to put her in jail. |
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| "What did she do? » |
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| Her crime: saying in an interview on June 2 the "monarchy is not suitable for Morocco", she prefers a republic and that the regime is near collapse. |
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| In this country, the king has decided that the only bed stories that are to be narrated to kids are the ones he wrote himself. The problem is that kids are sick and tired of hearing them over and over again. They are even refusing to go to bed; they say they really can’t stand the king’s stories. |
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| "Kids don’t sleep anymore? » |
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| "Some don’t sleep anymore, they keep walking in the streets drawing on walls." |
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| "Is it bad to draw on walls", asked Leeloo, a little worried. She loves drawing on walls.When Yassine saw the drawings she decided to go tell those kids to invent their own new stories and tell them to their parents if they hated the king’s stories this much. Thus, they will be able to sleep again. That‘s what the kids did and they finally managed to get some sleep.As for Yassine, she kept on looking for other drawings. |
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| Now Yassine and the editor of the weekly that published her words face up to five years in prison, the latest target in the kingdom's crackdown on an independent press that has grown more political, transformed in recent years into an opposition platform of sorts. |
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| Despite the emergence of a relatively free press, Yassine crossed the line by criticising the monarchy. |
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| When the king learned this, he was furious. He asked her to quit, but she wouldn’t listen, that’s when the king got really scared. |
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| "He was afraid she would turn him into…into…into a robot? » |
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| May be, so to protect himself, he taped her mouth with that big X. |
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| "What happens next? » questioned Leeloo. |
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| The Moroccan press code deems any insult to the royal family, Islam or the territorial integrity of the monarchy to be punishable by a prison sentence of three to five years and a fine of $1 200 to $12 000. |
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| Yassine, 46, is unrepentant. |
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| Yassine kept taking strolls downtown displaying her big X. kids then, seeing her gagged that way, carried on making up new stories to sleep. So the king decided to put her in jail so that kids forget about her. |
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| When the guardians went to arrest Yassine at her house, they found her surrounded by parents who had their minds full of new stories, and who were there to defend her. There were hundreds all over the place! |
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| "Like an army? » |
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| Yes, like an army. Yassine and her army took, on their own initiative, to the castle , and asked to see the king who didn’t suspect them to be so numerous. There wasn’t enough room in prison for a whole army. |
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| I don't regret saying a single word," she said on Tuesday. "It was vital for me to say what I felt. Jihad (holy war) for me is not to put a bomb but to express myself." |
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| For now, her trial is on hold after a confrontation when she showed up with the 170 lawyers, most of them volunteers who were initially barred from entering the court. |
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| "What will now happen to Yassine?" |
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| No one knows. Not Yassine, not even the king. You see, while the king is busy putting Yassine in jail, kids are still inventing their own stories. Drawings still appears on walls and alleys, kids talk amongst themselves and laugh. The king is distracted by Yassine, and even if he manages to put her in prison, this won’t change a thing. One day, soon enough, he will wake up to find out that he and his stories are the ones that people have forgotten. |
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