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<\/a><\/p>\nPublished On 1 Aug 20261 Aug 2026<\/p>\n
The politically outspoken Moroccan rapper and filmmaker Mehdi El Youbi has been granted a provisional release from prison in Casablanca, Morocco, after being detained for 18 days.<\/p>\n
A judge granted El Youbi\u2019s request for provisional release on Friday, according to a statement from a group of his supporters shared with Al Jazeera.<\/p>\n
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\u201cHe will not return to Oukacha Prison, where he had been held since 15 July. While we are extremely happy to know that he has been provisionally released, we are now waiting for his next hearing on 2 October 2026,\u201d the statement said.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs things stand, Mehdi is still being prosecuted under Article 179 of the Moroccan Penal Code for \u2018insulting a constitutional institution.\u2019 He still faces a sentence of six months to two years in prison, as well as a fine of between 20,000 and 200,000 Moroccan dirhams [$2,150 to $21,500].\u201d<\/p>\n
Better known by his stage name, Mehdi Black Wind, El Youbi was arrested<\/a> in Casablanca days after being barred from returning to France, where he has been based since 2017.<\/p>\n His arrest was believed to be linked to his artistic views and posts on social media, his supporters said.<\/p>\n El Youbi rose to prominence in Morocco and across North Africa in the early 2010s, at the same time as the Arab Spring<\/a>, with songs that caught the attention of authorities for their politically engaged lyrics.<\/p>\n Omar Radi, a Moroccan investigative journalist and human rights activist who was previously jailed<\/a>\u00a0for criticising a judge, earlier told Al Jazeera that El Youbi is \u201cthe most outspoken and politically direct Moroccan rapper\u201d.<\/p>\n At the time of El Youbi\u2019s arrest, a supporter said the move reflected the \u201cintensified repression linked to the Gen Z movement\u201d, referring to the youth-led protest movement<\/a> that emerged last year<\/a> in Morocco demanding better health services and education reforms.<\/p>\n In the group statement shared with Al Jazeera, El Youbi\u2019s supporters said \u201c600 people\u201d remain in detention since Autumn 2025. \u201cSome sentences are as long as 15 years in prison.\u201d<\/p>\n In October, the Moroccan Association for Human Rights reported that 600 people had been held for participating in the protests.<\/p>\n El Youbi appeared before a judge in Casablanca on Friday without a lawyer, as lawyers in Morocco are currently on strike, which concerned his supporters. But they said the \u201cwave of support\u201d that followed his arrest, with rallies held in cities across Morocco, Europe and North America, helped in his temporary release.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The outspoken artist was detained in mid-July for \u2018insulting a constitutional institution\u2019. Published On 1 Aug 20261 Aug…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":615518,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[264],"tags":[5913,27,18,117,8684,19,17,8820,10456,337,5,33950],"class_list":["post-615517","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-arts-and-culture","tag-courts","tag-eire","tag-entertainment","tag-human-rights","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-middle-east","tag-morocco","tag-music","tag-news","tag-prison"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/117021594071718656","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/615517","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=615517"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/615517\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/615518"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=615517"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=615517"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=615517"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}