Jailed for a T-Shirt

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This is just a bonus broadcast, and it's extremely timely and urgent, which is why it is going out a few days after the regular release. It is free to everybody, free to patrons, etc. There is a video link because... This originated as a video YouTube conversation. That link is in the description box of the show. Shelly Siegel is an artist and a songwriter and a human rights activist.

She brought a story to my attention. It's so unique. Now, we are in the GoFundMe culture where everybody's like, well, I need you to give, I need you to give. And people are, you know, they have limited resources. And after a while, we just get weary. We feel overwhelmed. This is going to be a unique ask. What is the ask? I'll let you tell everybody what we are about to ask them to do.

We are going to ask you to pre-order, to purchase a song, a song called Hurriya, which means freedom in Arabic. And this purchase of this song could help save the life of Moroccan human rights activist Ibtissam Bedi Lashkar.

You told me that years ago on Ramadan, she had committed the crime of having a picnic?

Yes. Well, this was an action that Betty used to raise awareness about the law that restricts freedom of conscience in Morocco. So in Morocco, if you are caught breaking the fast during Ramadan, you can be arrested.

And imprisoned for months.

And so to protest this and to raise awareness and promote freedom of conscience, Betty staged a Ramadan picnic. with her organization, Mali, which is a movement for individual liberties in Morocco.

And she became, what, a nationwide headline for that?

Absolutely.

There's a beautiful visual portrait created of Betty, and it's called The Most Hated Woman in Morocco. And she is definitely hated, but she is also very beloved by many people because she has been fighting for LGBT rights.

She has been fighting for.

Women's rights, reproductive freedoms, freedom of conscience for everybody in Morocco, for children, for women and men for almost two decades now.

And she has helped countless people. And she.

She is beloved, but she needs our help right now.

Was the Most Hated Woman video, the clip that you sent me, the video portrait of Betty?

Yes, that's the one.

Let me go ahead and play. I think it runs like eight minutes long. I think it's worth watching. Let me play the whole profile. And this will really give three dimensions to her and her life and her person and her story. And then we're going to give you the link to download.

My uterus, my choice, my freedom. This sounds obvious, but this is not the case in Morocco. The state controls the body and the sexuality of women. With Mali, I fight for women to be in charge of their own bodies, wombs, and sexuality. My name is Betty Lajgar, I am 44 years old, and I was born in Rabat. I am a nomad and always traveling. It makes me feel free.

I live in Paris and in Rabat. However, in Rabat I feel at home, gathering with friends on my rooftop terrace or be at the seaside by myself. I co-founded the Mali Movement in 2009. We organized many successful actions and demonstrations. We especially fight for sexual and reproductive rights as LGBT and abortion rights.

As we.

Are celebrating the 10th birthday of Mali, journalist Haja Raissouni is being held in prison for allegedly having had an abortion and having a sexual relation outside marriage. So our fight is far from over. There is no liberty of conscience in Morocco. It is a religious dictatorship. I am one of very few openly atheist people in Morocco. A lot of activist gatherings and actions take place in someone's home because it's safer.

Hello!

Still, the neighbors call the police because I am an unmarried woman who has male visitors. The human rights tattoo will be my first tattoo and important for me because human rights are an important theme in my life and my activism.

When growing up, I.

Had the space to always ask questions. I have learned a lot from my father, who was also a political activist. Before he died of cancer, I learned an important lesson from him. Resistance is not about numbers, but about impact.

And he was right.

The first action we organized with Mali was a symbolic picnic during the month of Ramadan. Only six people showed up for the picnic, but with dozens of policemen and journalists present, the impact was huge. In poetic acts of civil disobedience, Meli works together with performance artists in peaceful, non-violent actions that break certain taboos. When Moroccan women have unwanted pregnancies, they may only have an abortion when the woman's life is in danger, and only with the authorization of the husband.

I'm from Morocco.

The Moroccan government use women's bodies as a political battleground and to silence critical voices. For many years, I am fighting for the abortion rights of.

All women.

Being able to make our own choices about our health, body and sexuality is a basic human right. Denying women this choice is denying women their freedom and autonomy. No doctor, politician or imam should decide for women about their body. Since I survived cancer when I was 20 years old, I feel I can be fearless in my activism and my fight for people who are victims of discriminations. Overcoming cancer drastically changed my perspectives and personality. I have been assaulted by the police and other people, and I have been on an ISIS hit list. But I feel powerful.

and without fear when I can help others in fighting for their individual rights and justice. Now we saw in the video.

Shelly, that she is a cancer survivor. And this has brought us to a moment where her life is in danger. Can you flesh out exactly what the problem is here?

So Betty is a survivor of Irving's sarcoma. She has a type of bone cancer. She has a prosthetic humerus in her left arm. That prosthetic was placed there in her 20s. She's now 51 years old. And her prosthetic needs to be replaced.

So a surgery to replace the prosthetic was scheduled for September of last year. But she goes to Morocco to visit her mother a month or two before, and she gets arrested in Morocco. So that's why she's in prison. What did she do to get arrested in 2025?

Well, when Betty was visiting her mother in Rabat in Morocco, a photo of Betty wearing a T-shirt that people found very offensive was circulated and went viral. There were calls for her arrest for days. The t-shirt that Betty wore said, Allah is lesbian. And it was a t-shirt that she created in 2022 in solidarity with two Iranian lesbians who were sentenced to death. It was part of a feminist statement.

There's a famous feminist quote from the 1970s that says, I met God. She was black, gay, and a communist. So that's the context of this T-shirt, which also was never worn in Morocco, by the way. And then this picture circulating caused so much offense and Betty was arrested and charged with blasphemy and sentenced to two and a half years in prison over this T-shirt.

We've got the prosthetic that is deteriorating. Has it detached from the bone already in her arm?

Yes.

So during her detention... the prosthetic has failed. We have independent medical reports that there is a fracture at the elbow and at the shoulder. The prosthetic has completely detached and is hanging and is actually now coming out of the shoulder socket.

And Betty's in excruciating pain.

But even worse than that, she is at immediate danger of infection, amputation, and death. Her life is in danger. This is a humanitarian health crisis for this incredible human rights activist.

And so we are working on a plan to raise awareness about her with a song that does feature her. Has her voice actually been recorded? First of all, who wrote the song? Who recorded the song? And how did Betty's voice get on the song? Tell me about it.

Sure, absolutely.

So we've been working for a year to try and get Betty out. The UN Human Rights Council has sent communication mandates to the Kingdom of Morocco. Avaz has started a petition with almost 400,000 signatures. It's one of the largest ever petitions to the Moroccan authorities.

Human Rights Watch have called for her release. Amnesty International.

We've had so much international press. We've had actions and protests across eight countries, coordinated actions. But it's not been enough to have her released, pardoned, or the least that we're asking for is access to the urgent life-saving medical care that she requires.

And so I am a musician. I know the power of music.

And I've been working with this incredible artist, songwriter, Motown living legend, Lee Garrett, who is the co-writer behind Signed, Sealed, Delivered, I'm Yours, behind The Spinners, It's a Shame, behind Jermaine Jackson's Let's Get Serious. This is a living legend, 83 years old, had a hit in every decade since the 60s.

And I'm working with him on, on his legacy campaign. And he asked about another, like, what else have you been working on? And we shared that we, we shared Betty's story and he said, I want to help. And he put together this incredible team of artists, producers in the studio.

And we created this song.

We took Betty's voice from the video that you just watched that beautiful portrait of Betty, where at the end, she says, we have to keep fighting until we have freedom. Hurraya, which again is freedom in Arabic. We took that vocal and we built the song around that. The song is called Huria. This is Huria.

It means freedom.

Now, for my audio listeners, you lifted your arm, a tattoo, which means freedom.

Yes, it's Huria in Arabic. I got it.

Let me play. We're not releasing the song yet because it has not officially released. And we're going to get to that in just a second because it's the pre-order that we need. But let me play you just a very short segment of the song we're talking about.

She is strong, she is brilliant.

She'll just get what she wants.

We have to keep fighting until we have freedom.

Hurry.

When does the song actually release?

So the song comes out November 20th. We also have a music video that will release on the same day. And the thing that is so beautiful about this release is it's a collaboration with Lee Garrett, this iconic, legendary songwriter, and Ibtisam Betty Lashkar.

We've taken her voice. She's on the song.

So she is an artist on the song, and this song will be released by her from prison. Now, I've worked in the music industry for a long time, I know how to run a campaign, I know how to get songs on the charts and that is our goal here. We have been working on a political campaign alongside all the human rights organizations that I just mentioned. We have target countries, we have politicians in those target countries that we are asking to raise Betty's case in their question time or similar mechanisms in parliament. We are asking them to raise her case. But it's not enough for us to just be asking. We need to show them that the world cares, that their constituents care, that people in in those countries care. And so we're going to prove

that to them by getting this song to number one in the charts in our target countries.

So that's where we need your help.

The way a pre-order campaign works, for those who aren't familiar, it's hard to compete as an independent artist. The major artists, they're selling thousands of songs every single day.

But with a pre-order.

Campaign, So if we have the sales are available now, you can buy the song in advance. And we've got four weeks until November 20th. Every single song that is purchased leading up to November 20th on release day when it drops, it counts as one. on the one day and that's how a smaller campaign can compete with the major artists and that's how if we get enough sales we can go straight to the chart the i at least the top of the itunes charts in our target countries and i feel confident that we can get on the official charts of those countries as well and we're going to show the solidarity the message the movement behind betty is unstoppable.

That's going to be an amazing story.

We're going to be able to engage a lot of press and use that to put more pressure on the politicians.

Throughout history, we've seen public support, public pressure. We've seen the rise of human rights issues through the arts and artists. And by bringing that much positive attention, it is our hope that the Moroccan government will, at the very least, again, allow her to get life-saving medical care. And, you know, our hope would be even more than that. We'd like to see her liberated from imprisonment and return to her home in Paris. But, you know, right now, I just see a woman in a cell with what feels like no options. Perhaps even no hope for the crime of doing what? For wearing a t-shirt in a country that was not Morocco years before. So what a wonderful and worthy cause. We want to pre-order, download this on a

certain platform?

Yes, we want to download this on iTunes. If you don't have iTunes, go and download the iTunes app. There'll be a link, right, Seth? You're going to share a link that should take people straight to their iTunes and they can just press the button that says pre-order.

If for whatever reason that's not working, go to iTunes, look.

Up Lee Garrett and Courier, and then you'll have the option to pre-order.

It'd be very cool to think that we were, all of us, Thousands, tens of thousands of us, all of us, by downloading one song for a few bucks or whatever, could be a part of the story. How much?

69 cents.

Come on. I want everybody listening, everybody to deeply consider spending 69 cents to download the song. And I know a lot of people have strong opinions about Apple, and I understand. Sometimes we do find ourselves a little frustrated with the platform. But I'm looking bigger picture, and I think so are you. And I'm excited about the chance to be a part of it.

Thank you so much, Seth.

You know, this is us using, we're using that to achieve our own aims. And you know something as well that is just really so beautiful about this song and this collaboration with Lee and Betty is Betty has been deeply criticized in Morocco for the values that she espouses.

Freedom of conscience, equality.

Reproductive freedoms, religious freedoms, LGBT rights, She gets criticized and saying that these are Western values. And Betty has always said these are universal values. Human rights are universal values. They don't belong to someone because of where they live and where they're born. And Lee Garrett in this song, he speaks to that so deeply. Here is an 83-year-old man who grew up in the Jim Crow era in Mississippi in the United States going through, he was born blind.

in Mississippi and overcoming so many obstacles to become the historic part of music that he is today, known around the world. But he speaks to the universality of our values, you know, that this man on the other side of the world from another generation can connect to Betty and understand what it is that she's doing and understand what Hurria and freedom is and join the call for it and lead the call for it is so beautiful and so powerful. and speak so much to this universality of our human rights. And I want her to be number one in the world from prison. That's the message of Hurria.

That's what we can achieve right now. And so thank you so much, Seth, for having me on to give everybody a chance.

Sorry about that.

Oh, yeah.

Your enthusiasm is contagious. I'm hearing audio notifications. Hopefully that's not.

That's my mom. Mom, I'm on a podcast.

Hi, mom. Hi, Mom. We love your daughter, Mom. Free Betty. Free Betty. Free Betty.

Free Betty.

What a doll. That's amazing. Shelly. All right. I'm going to link everything in the description box, including and especially the link to download the song for 69 cents. Do you have a number? Do you have a goal? Or are we just going big here?

It's different in different countries.

So the threshold that we'll have to pass, you know, to get on the billboard charts in the U.S.

Is different than the official charts in the U.K. and Ireland. But we have our target numbers.

Okay. I could be talking, I'm sure, in the tens of thousands. I know this audience can take a big piece of that pie. I know we can.

I have to say it's not going to even be in the tens of thousands.

I don't care. We want tens of thousands.

Oh, no, we need tens of thousands. It's doable.

And that's the thing. We can actually do it. It's not unobtainable. So, yes, we need every single person.

All right. And everyone has my word. I will continue to liaise with Shelley and we'll monitor. And if there are any updates as to her story and what happens and how the government responds and what happens on the charts, I will do my very best to make sure that this stays near the front burner or on the front burner in the weeks ahead. Shelly Siegel. Thank you for bringing this story to my attention. And people just love you and your enthusiasm. I get all ramped up as well.

So now I'm ready to go out and change the world. So let's change the world for this person, okay?

Let's do it.

You know, I think what you said before, there are so many people that are in need right now. We look around and the world is messed up. It's a terrible place. But this is somebody, Betty, who has risked her life time and time again. She could just stay in Paris and have a nice life and not have to worry, but she goes back and she fights for her people and she puts her life on the line.

And the people that do that, the people that risk their lives to make the world a better place for all of us, I feel like the least I can do is sit behind my computer.

And email and talk. And a pleasure to get to talk to you, Seth.

So we need to be there for the people that are out there taking that risk.

And that's Betty. So thank you so much again for having me.

You bet. Links are in the description box. Let's make it happen. And thank you, Shelly.

We're gonna rise.

We have to keep fighting until.

We have freedom.

Hurry.

We have to

Keep fighting until we have freedom.

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