Moroccan police prevented, Friday, Hirak female figure Nawal Benaissa from leaving the country as she was preparing to travel to the Netherlands to attend a social justice event, Spanish press agency EFE said. «When I arrived this morning in the Nador airport police station, I was told that my passport has been invalidated by the Interior Ministry and that I am not allowed to travel abroad», Nawal Benaissa told EFE. The activist, who was with one of her children, was expected to attend an event, Saturday, hosted by the Dutch Socialist Party (PS) on inequality in the world and the struggle for social justice. Benaissa said that police officers informed her that her passport and the one of her son were invalidated, although they were expected to be valid until 2023. The woman has been a «female Hirak figure» since May 2017, after Hirak leader Nasser Zefzafi was arrested. Nawal Benaissa explained that the speech she was expected to deliver in Amsterdam was about her experience as a woman during the Hirak protests, and about the current situation in the region. In January, she was given a suspended sentence of 10 months. A month earlier, in December 2018, she traveled to France and Italy without being stopped by the police.
