Something Wicked

Tétouan · Taroudant · Agadir · Rabat · 2015–2025 · Recent

This episode describes beatings, burns, torture, the deaths of mentally ill and vulnerable people, and medical neglect.

Across Morocco, 2015 to 2025. A woman is held down on the floor while a man recites over her and beats her with a stick. Everyone in the room believes they are saving her. Ruqya, healing by recitation, is ordinary and legal. This is the version that ends in a body.

From Tétouan to Taroudant, Agadir to Rabat, the deaths are reported, the arrests are reported, and then the story stops. Why do verdicts almost never make it into print? Why are there so few names? And what does justice look like when the one conviction on record is four months, suspended?

In episode six of Blood & Mint Tea: True Crime from Morocco, we follow a decade of deadly ruqya sessions across Morocco, from village homes to a Rabat courtroom.

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