[JURIST] Two Moroccan women on Monday went on trial for gross indecency [Moroccan penal code article 483, in French] for wearing skirts that police characterized as “too tight.” The women, hairdressers aged 23 and 29, were arrested [Al-arby report] in mid-June in the city of Agadir after a passerby notified the police about the women’s allegedly provocative clothing. At Monday’s hearing, 200 lawyers took turns speaking in defense of the women, who face up to two years in prison if convicted. Liz McKean, the director of the women’s human rights program for Amnesty International UK [official website] condemned the trial, saying “[t]’s not the clothing that’s flimsy here, it’s the legal case against these two young women. The case has all the hallmarks of a discriminatory use of the law against women, part of a pattern of discriminatory laws and practices in Morocco.” Protests in support of the women are scheduled for later this week in Agadir and Morocco’s commercial capital Casablana, and the judge is expected to deliver a verdict early next week.

Morocco has come under fire for human rights abuses in the recent past. Last month, two Moroccan gay men were sentenced [Guardian report] to serve four months in prison for violating the nation’s “public modesty” law [Morrocan penal code article 489] by posing too closely together in a picture. In May, AI reported [JURIST report] widespread torture of Moroccan prisoners at the hands of authorities, with a documented 173 cases between 2010 and 2014. The report also stated that medical care, hygiene and food are lacking in the detention cells. Last April, a judge in Spain decided [JURIST report] that genocide charges against seven former and current Moroccan officials, who were accused of committing torture and killings in Western Sahara from 1975-91, were justified. In November Human Rights Watch reported [JURIST report] that Moroccan authorities are interfering with the work of human rights organizations. A Moroccan court last August sentenced [JURIST report] human rights activist Ouafa Charaf to one year in prison after being convicted of falsely alleging that she had been tortured by police.