Several prominent Amazigh activists have filed a lawsuit against popular Moroccan YouTuber Ilyas El-Malki after he made caustic remarks about the Amazigh community during a livestream broadcast. His remarks, directed at a vast audience, including adolescents, sparked widespread controversy. The lawsuit now accuses him of “inciting hatred.”
The 28-year-old influencer, who has around 1.6 million followers on Instagram, had been invited to captain the Moroccan football team in the Kings League World Cup, when earlier this month a video of El-Malki’s offensive comments about the Amazigh community went viral on social media. Some Moroccans viewed the video as anti-Amazigh hate speech, while others dismissed it as just crude humor.
Rachid Bouhaddouz, a Moroccan Amazigh political and cultural activist and one of the plaintiffs in the case, said in an interview with Radio France International (RFI), “We must not trivialize this kind of speech or write it off as dark humor. If we normalize it, it could have serious consequences. Morocco is a united country and people. We cannot allow cultural or regional differences to damage this cohesion or weaken our sense of belonging.”
Mohamed Almou, the lawyer representing the plaintiffs, said he is concerned about the significant adverse impact El-Malki may have on people as a social media influencer. “The defendant has a large audience,” he said. “Given the nature of his content, his followers are often young people, including teenagers, who may be influenced by this hateful, racist rhetoric and be tempted to imitate it.”
El-Malki already has a criminal record, according to local media, having been convicted earlier this year of committing assault with a deadly weapon and theft. He was released on August 10 after spending three months in an El Jadida prison.