The Paris administrative court announced, Monday March 4, that it validated the expulsion to Tunisia, decided by the Minister of the Interior, of imam Mahjoub Mahjoubi, accused of calls to hatred targeting women and the Jews in his sermons. In its decision, the court ruled that the remarks made by Mr. Mahjoubi did not fit into “the framework of the values ????of the French Republic, pitted Muslims and non-Muslims against each other, incited hatred towards Jews and Israel or advocated jihad and sharia,” he explains in a press release.
Mr. Mahjoubi’s lawyer, Me Samir Hamroun, had filed a request for interim relief (an emergency procedure) to challenge the expulsion order issued by the Minister of the Interior to the administrative court judge. , Gérald Darmanin, in person against his client.
Friday, during the hearing, the lawyer denounced “an unprecedented violation of rights” and “an unprecedented procedure in terms of speed” against his client who “was deprived of being able to have his case heard before a judge and leaves behind him is a dramatic family situation, since he has minor children, in school, one of whom is suffering from quite serious cancer”. “It is a necessary, appropriate and proportionate measure”, because thus “we are preventing the reiteration of particularly serious remarks through his preaching”, affirmed for her part the representative of the Ministry of the Interior.
On hate preachers.”
“Attack on the symbol of the Republic”
Imam of the small town of Bagnols-sur-Cèze, in Gard, Mahjoub Mahjoubi was arrested and then deported on February 22 to Tunisia. Having lived in France since the mid-1980s, he was in the crosshairs of the Minister of the Interior, who had requested, a few days before his expulsion, the withdrawal of his residence permit.
Mahjoub Mahjoubi was notably accused of broadcasting a video in which he described the “tricolor flag” – without specifying whether it was the French flag – as a “satanic flag” which would have “no value with Allah [“God”, in Arabic]”.
“It is an attack on the symbol of the Republic and a demand for the desire to see Sharia [Islamic law] established,” said the interior representative during the hearing. “He didn’t want to talk about the tricolor. He does not have a perfect command of the French language,” replied the lawyer, according to whom Mr. Mahjoubi “very much regrets having been able to suggest that he is undermining the principles of our nation.”
“He does not have an influential role in Gard,” added Mr. Hamroun, who “contests any desire to direct individuals towards radicalization.” As for the sermons, the lawyer conceded a “very patriarchal” speech and the expression of “a freedom of opinion which may be questionable, but this is absolutely not the terrorist aim put forward by the ministry”.
