Actor Loubna Abidar, who played a prostitute in the Cannes hit Much Loved, claims she was ‘received with laughter’ after trying to report an attack by unknown knife-wielding assailants at Casablanca’s main police station

A Moroccan actor who starred in a controversial film about sex workers says she has fled the North African nation for France after being savagely beaten.

Loubna Abidar, who played a prostitute in the drama Much Loved, posted photographs and a video on Facebook in which she appeared bruised and bleeding. She said she had been attacked by unknown knife-wielding assailants in Casablanca on Thursday night and claimed no police station or hospital would take her in.

“I went to Casablanca’s main police station in the middle of the night and was received with laughter,” she said in the video. “The police officer said: ‘Finally Abidar, you got beaten!’”

She added: “All this for a film you haven’t seen; you’ve only seen what people have put on the internet. God help me.”

Much Loved, which is credited with exposing the thriving sex industry in social conservative Morocco, was banned by the government shortly after its debut at the Cannes film festival in May. Minister of communication Mustapha El Khalfi said the film “undermines the moral values and dignity of Moroccan women, and is a flagrant attack on the Kingdom’s image”.

Moroccan director accused of 'pornography and debauchery' over sex worker drama Much Loved Read more

On Sunday Abidar posted a new selfie in which she wore dark glasses, along with the caption: “Left Morocco, in France.” French newspaper Le Figaro reported on Monday that the actor had taken “the first plane to France” for “security reasons”.

Abidar, who has a young daughter, and her director, Nabil Ayouch, were summoned to court in June on charges of “pornography, indecency and inciting minors to debauchery” after the drama became the centre of a social media backlash when clips featuring explicit content leaked online. Among the responses was a Facebook page that called for the execution of the French-Moroccan film-maker and his lead actor.

Loubna Abidar’s Facebook post of 9 November Photograph: Facebook

A police source denied Abidar’s claims that the actor was turned away in comments reported by the Alyaoum 24 website. “We have no position against Abidar or anybody else, all citizens are equal and any citizen has the right to lodge a complaint,” said the source,” adding: “The duty of the police is to listen to him.”

The actor, whose sex worker character in Much Loved can be heard discussing her preference for clients with small penises and lots of money, has previously told French media that she wants asylum in France because authorities refuse to protect her in the face of a socially conservative backlash. She told Le Figaro in June: “I’m not scared to die for a film, but I hope that things will calm down and that Moroccan society will evolve.”

Much Loved, also known as Zin Li Fik in Morocco, tells the story of four women working as prostitutes in Morocco’s most popular tourist destination, Marrakech. Without state funding to fund them, Ayouch and his team cast non-professional actors from neighbourhoods where prostitution is common in Morocco. The film was made by a largely female team.

In the wake of the film’s Cannes debut, Moroccan authorities released figures on the sex worker industry for the first time. Moroccan newspaper Al Khabar said health ministries in the cities Rabat, Tangier, Fez and Agadir had admitted there were 19,333 sex workers there in 2011, according to Al Jazeera.

