Conflicts affecting the Moroccan Women Writers Association

The “curse” of the Moroccan Writers Union has extended to the Moroccan Women Writers Association, which a “corrective movement” said had dismissed its president due to illegal amendments, while the president asserts that “the approach adopted by the plaintiffs does not follow legal and administrative procedures.”

In a press conference held on Saturday at the headquarters of the Moroccan Association for Human Rights in Rabat, Latifa Al-Maskini said, on behalf of the Executive Office of the Moroccan Women Writers Association, which emerged from the Corrective Movement, that “the new office emerged from the Corrective Movement from female members of the Executive Office who represent two-thirds of it.”

The press conference began with offering “deepest condolences for the loss of the nation’s martyr, Professor Ismail Haniyeh,” coinciding with the national solidarity march with Palestine that the capital hosted. Al-Maskini added that “the corrective movement comes at the hands of a group of women who are jealous of this cultural women’s edifice, which has always served the noble goals of the League in its bylaws and internal regulations, since the days of the late president Aziza Yahya, to restore things to their proper place.”

She continued, speaking about “imbalances and violations at the organizational and legal levels of the association, and the concealment of some data related to the executive office, from cultural programs, and support received by the association from ministries and partner bodies, with a one-sided opinion and marginalization, and the violation of all the charters of the association’s work, and a deviation from the association’s basic goals, and an attempt to give it a character that was not its basic and main character.”

The head of the “Corrective Movement” confirmed that the Moroccan Women Writers Association’s “primary concern is to gather educated women and writers under a unified edifice, and to serve our Moroccan cultural identity, our values ​​and our gains that have been achieved over a long period, in partnership between women and men,” before adding, “We have no hostility, nor any position towards the former president, other than her positions that took us to a dead end, so we rallied around the principle of correction to rebuild, not destroy.”

“After the death of the former president, a new president was supposed to take her place to manage the stage, through the Council of Wise Women (…), so the management tasks were assigned, but what happened was a presidency, a change in the basic law of the association, and the amputation of an important body that has value for the association and our cultural scene, which includes female writers who have given a lot of their creativity and time to their country, which is the Council of Wise Women, without the opinion of the executive office, although it includes pioneers, including its president Malika Al-Assimi, Aisha Belarbi, Najat Al-Marini, Zahour Karam, Amina Al-Marini, and many intellectuals, and it is the highest decision-making authority, after the president, in the association, and the spirit that corrects the course of things if they deviate from its path.”

She added, “The former president changed a number of articles in the basic law, even though the proposals should be made by conference and ratified by conferences. The straw that broke the camel’s back was what happened in Asa Zak (…), and she lacked wisdom in managing matters.”

The press conference discussed Article 20 of the bylaws of the Moroccan Women Writers Association, which states that “the extraordinary general assembly shall be held at the request of at least a quarter of the members, or at the request of two-thirds of the members of the office,” and its powers include “amending the association’s laws, dismissing members of the office, and deciding on any urgent or timely matter that necessity calls for.” The discussion also touched on two previous statements and an unanswered call for deliberation, which “called for withdrawing confidence and dismissing the presidency (…) out of concern for the homeland (…) against everything that disgraces the educated Moroccan woman who is active in the cultural arena and women regardless of their status.”

It is noteworthy that the Moroccan Women Writers Association circulated a statement today, Saturday, signed by the association’s president, Badiaa Radi, in which she said that “the Moroccan Women Writers Association, following what was circulated on some social media sites and websites by the so-called corrective movement, which claims that it has set up an office in the name of the association in a situation that is discordant with the general law regulating the work of civil society and against customs and ethics, especially since it concerns a cultural organization built on major goals in creating a cultural society and improving creative spaces, we inform public opinion that the approach adopted by the plaintiffs does not follow the legal and administrative procedures imposed by the Public Freedoms Law based on Decree 58, which is considered a blatant violation and disruption of the successes achieved by this women’s cultural organization, in which some of them were not active.”

She continued, “This is what we consider as the presidency and as an amended executive office in the extraordinary assembly of July 2024 as misleading through social media and some media platforms that we demand to verify the news they receive (…) We in the executive office and the national council and all the presidents at the national level and the branches and regions are clinging to the legitimacy of the Moroccan Women Writers Associations within the framework of the law, and we retain the right to resort to all legal procedures that Moroccan law allows.”