Saida Menebhi


Saida Menebhi was a Moroccan poet and activist of a Marxist revolutionary movement Ila al-Amam. In 1975, she, together with five other members of the movement, was sentenced for seven years of imprisonment for anti-state activity. In the jail in Casablanca, she went on hunger strike and died on the 34th day of the strike.
Her poetry, collected and published in 2000, is considered a prime example of Moroccan revolutionary and feminist literature. She wrote in French.

Abduction

On January 16, 1976, Saida Menebhi was abducted and detained—along with 3 other female activists—in the secret Moulay Sherif Prison in Casablanca, now known as a prominent center of torture in the period of King Hassan II. There, they were subjected to a number of different kinds of physical and psychological torture before being transferred to the civilian prison in Casablanca. Menebhi and her comrades Fatima Okasha and Rabiaa al-Futooh were sentenced to indefinite solitary confinement in the civilian prison of Casablanca.