By Mohamad El Sahily | Staff Writer
Lebanese singer Elissa, seemingly undaunted by the facts, saluted Moroccan rapper Saad Lamjarred in her latest concert. A few weeks ago, Lamjarred was convicted of rape in a French court and sentenced to six years in prison. This was after several previous efforts to indict Lamjarred, the latest of which he escaped only by the intervention of the King of Morocco. Lamjarred did not escape the rule of law this time and therefore was sentenced to prison amid international scrutiny on the impunity with which artists commit such crimes against women and generally are not held accountable for their crimes.
The Moroccan singer has been accused of multiple sexual assault allegations and charges in the past decade. He was arrested in New York in 2010 on suspicion of beating and raping a woman. In 2016, he was charged with rape and battery of a French woman, which was later withdrawn,
and he was accused of raping a French-Moroccan woman in Casablanca. Many of the accusations have been withdrawn due to suspected out-of-court settlements or shame and pressure on the victims. This has only multiplied in recent years as more of his crimes have been revealed through numerous police reports.
A while ago, Lebanese singer Elissa released a song with Lamjarred entitled Min Awal Dekika, sparking a backlash against her on social media along with the hashtag “Elissa supports rapists.” This seems to be a line of action that Elissa has chosen to stick with, especially now. Ever since his trial began, Elissa has doubled down on her endorsement of Lamjarred even as evidence of his crimes surfaced. This has generated a great deal of online backlash, especially at her latest display of solidarity with Lamjarred. Unfortunately, Elissa is not the only artist to publicly support him.
In the days after Lamjarred’s conviction, he has continued to receive support from colleagues in the music industry and beyond. He has denied all rape allegations. In an Instagram post, which seems to now have been deleted, the Moroccan singer Hatim Ammor voiced his “grief” for his “brother Saad”. News agencies reported that Lamjarred’s other supporters included the actor Mariam Hussein, the singer Dounia Batma, and celebrities as far afield as Lebanon and Syria. Ammor, Batma, and other Moroccan artists also backed Lamjarred in 2016, when the singer faced accusations of rape in France and the United States. A French-Moroccan woman later alleged that Lamjarred had raped her in Casablanca in 2015.
In the aftermath of Lamjarred’s conviction, Moroccan actor Loubna Abidar, who herself suffered physical and verbal abuse in Morocco after playing a sex worker in an acclaimed film, wrote an Instagram post denouncing rape culture and victim blaming in the kingdom as “a plague” and “poison”. Even before the court’s ruling, a multinational boycott of Lamjarred notched some key successes, among them the cancellation of a concert in Egypt in 2020.