New episode in the endless soap opera of the expulsion of Imam Iquioussen.
Administrative justice is examining the merits this Monday in Paris of the expulsion order for Moroccan imam Hassan Iquioussen.
A year ago, Gérald Darmanin made him a symbol of the government's fight against “
separatist speeches
”.
Coincidentally, this hearing occurs four days after the expulsion to Tunisia of another imam, Mahjoub Mahjoubi.
“Hate speech”
In July 2022, the Minister of the Interior announced the expulsion of this Islamist preacher from the North on file S. The order accused him of
“a proselytizing speech peppered with remarks inciting hatred and discrimination and carrying a vision of Islam contrary to the values of the Republic
”.
The imam was nowhere to be found when the expulsion order was definitively validated by the Council of State, on August 31, 2022. He had fled to French-speaking Belgium where he was arrested on September 30, before being expelled. to Morocco the following January.
On Monday, the Paris administrative court, which had urgently suspended the expulsion in early August 2022, is studying the case on its merits.
The imam asked to be heard by video during this hearing which begins at 11:30 a.m.
His lawyer, Me Lucie Simon, recalls that this hearing concerns “
an appeal in excess of power
”, and that “
the decision of the Council of State cannot apply
”.
On the one hand because it “
obeys criteria of urgency and serious infringement of a fundamental freedom which are not legally required by the procedure on the merits
” and on the other hand because it was taken in “
a tense political context
” and “
contains factual errors which cannot persist in the proceedings on the merits
”, believes the lawyer.
5 children and 15 grandchildren live in France
The judgment of the Paris administrative court in August 2022 found that the imam's remarks during a conference in 2018 according to which a man should not let his wife leave the home alone did indeed constitute “
acts of provocation (. ..) to discrimination against women
”.
But this reason alone
“cannot (can) justify the expulsion order without seriously and manifestly disproportionately affecting his right to lead a normal private and family life
,” he concluded.
Born in France, Hassan Iquioussen decided when he came of age not to opt for French nationality.
He claims to have given it up at age 17 under the influence of his father and then tried in vain to get it back.
His five children and 15 grandchildren are French and based in France, in the Nord department.