#Nadorkiss Facebook Picture of Teenagers Arrested For Kissing Released As Anonymous Threatens Moroccan Government

This is reportedly the picture of two Moroccan teenagers sharing a kiss outside their school, which saw the pair arrested for "violating public decency" and now facing two years behind bars.

A #NadorKiss twitter account - with the bio "We Are #Anonymous. We Are Legion. We give kisses - arrest us" reposted the image on Friday - apparently blurred to protect the identity of the teens, along with threats to hack the Moroccan government unless the charges are dropped.

A 15-year-old boy and 14-year-old girl – along with a 15-year-old boy who took the picture appeared in court for a closed hearing on Friday.

The case was adjourned and they will be sentenced on 6 December, AFP reported.

The couple were photographed in the embrace outside their school in the northeastern city of Nador in early October.

The image was uploaded to Facebook and later found its way into the hands of a local newspaper, which branded it "an outrage to public decency".

A complaint was lodged with the police, resulting in the arrests and sparking a furious debate on the right to public displays of affection in the country.

On Thursday the #NadorKiss twitter account announced that a video-recorded message to the Moroccan authorities had been uploaded to YouTube, containing information from an earlier press release.

In it, a computerised voice reads a chilling message promising to “humiliate the Moroccan government in the way these youths have been humiliated. We intend to expose the Moroccan government in the way they have exposed the private lives of these young teenagers.”

It adds:

“Our actions represent merely an opening volley, a warning no matter what governments may believe behind closed doors or in the antiseptic conditions of courtrooms, this is our internet, it is ungovernable, dirty, wild and vicious.

“We have every intention of fighting tooth and nail to keep it that way. Censorship, invasions of privacy and bullying of citizens by their own governments will not be tolerated and will always be met with resistance.

“Drop the charges against these teenagers, pull back from the brink of the unbelievable two-year sentence they could be facing for expressing affection for each other and we will also back down. Continue down this road and we will rip through your governmental servers, leaking and deleting as we go.

“None of your systems will be safe. There are no conciliatory words here merely the focus of the true internet hate machine, that you are only ever a series of key strokes away from, for using teenagers as pawns in your war on freedom of expression online. For risking the permanent damage of their young lives. You should have expected us.”

Human rights group Amnesty International last month described the prosecution of the teenagers as “absurd”.

Philip Luther, Middle East and North Africa Director at the charity, said: “These young people should never have been detained in the first place - there is no imaginable reason why expression of this type ought to result in prosecution.

"Launching a judicial investigation into a complaint about an act as benign as teenagers kissing is ridiculous. It should be dismissed out of hand.”

A copycat “kiss-in” was organised by dozens of demonstrators on 12 October to defend the right to public displays of affection and an online campaign hashtagged with #NadorKiss continues to gather pace.