Liziane Gutierrez, a social media influencer, claimed that she spent an entire month in jail after recording a policeman in Marrakesh.
Before being taken to a women’s prison, Gutierrez said she was subjected to a humiliating genital inspection to verify that she wasn’t transgender.
Continuing her story, she added: “I never felt so humiliated in my life,”
She also recounted: “And they were looking up inside me like a doctor or whatever, and I was just crying.”
Gutierrez believes that if she had been transgender, the authorities would have placed her in a men’s prison, a thought she found even more horrifying.
The ordeal started on October 30, when the influencer’s bag was stolen outside her Marrakesh hotel.
Inside were her phone and her husband’s work phone, both containing critical information.
The very next day, one of the phones pinged its location, prompting them to rush to the closest policeman for help.
Describing this moment, she said: “We saw these guys with the police car near the hotel and we went to contact them.”
“They were just ignoring us, so I grabbed the phone and I started to record them, to show to people: if you’re a tourist in Marrakesh and you need police, they’re just going to ignore you.”
“When I did that, they handcuffed me and my husband, and they threw us in a police car and took us to the police station.”
Her husband was released after spending just one night in custody.
This happened after he agreed to provide the password to the phone used to record the police officers.
However, for Gutierrez, the ordeal was far from over.
Sharing more about the conditions, she said: “In the little room, it was supposed to be like no more than 10 girls, and it was 20 girls.”
She added: “There were bugs everywhere, flies everywhere.”
Gutierrez was eventually moved to a larger prison, where she stayed for a month before being released.
Reflecting on her experience, she said it was her worst travel ordeal yet, even more traumatic than her visits to North Korea and war-torn Ukraine.
She continued: “I was in a country that didn’t speak good English, I don’t know nobody there but my husband, so I was just trying to look for help.”
The Moroccan authorities have been approached for a comment on the matter.