Rabat - Moroccan-born Aicha Mesrar, a councilor in the northern Italian city of Rovereto, has been reportedly forced to resign her post and flee Italy after she received a series of death threats, insults and xenophobic messages over the last two years.
On Thursday Italy’s first Muslim councilor, Aicha Mesrar, resigned from her post as local councilor for the Democratic Party in Rovereto and fled Italy after she received anonymous death threats over the past two years, citing her children’s safety, local media reported.
Italy’s Gazzetta Del Sud quoted Aicha Mesrar, 45, who has lived in the city of Rovereto since the age of 22, as saying that she cannot live always under “escort.”
“I have no fear and it is not the fault of the people of Rovereto, but of some, “Aicha said. “I leave with pride, satisfied with everything I have done and what I received."
Aicha said that she has been receiving death threats in the form of anonymous letters, over a two-year period. The local police offered her special protection, but they could not uncover the source of the letters.
The head of the provincial government,Bruno Dorigatti expressed his “total solidarity” with Mesrar, hailing her as an ““outstanding example of civic commitment,” according to The Independent.
“If Aicha Mesrar, an extraordinary example of commitment towards building bridges between cultures – in Rovereto and Trentino – decides to abandon her post and even leave the country, then everyone should be concerned,” he said.
He went further to say that if she has to give in to intimidation and anonymous threats “it means that Trentino has yet to defeat the dangerous disease of intolerance.”
Aicha Mesrar was born in Casablanca.[1] In 2010 Mesrar was elected Local Councilor for the Democratic Party in Rovereto, and became the first woman to wear a veil in city hall.
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