At the hearing, it is the absence that is striking.
That of imam Hassan Iquioussen in the first place, who brings an “excess of power appeal” before the Paris administrative court, against his expulsion in January 2023. The judge refused to allow him to testify by videoconference.
That of “power” too, which sent him back to Morocco a year and a half earlier for “separatist speeches”.
The Minister of the Interior Gérald Darmanin will not justify this before the judge, the ministry was not represented at the hearing: “It takes confidence not to come and defend this decision,” remarks Mr. Lucie Simon, lawyer for the imam.
A serenity strengthened by recent news: “This debate comes four days after the expulsion of Imam Mahjoubi, and we would like to assimilate these two cases.
», Regrets Me Simon, who explains the crowds in the courtroom by the singularity of this case, on the borders of freedom of expression as she tries to present it.
“I ask you to recognize that this man is macho, even conspiratorial,” she dares, “but that it is sadly banal.”
No “incitement to hatred and discrimination” in the conferences broadcast since 2003 on YouTube by the preacher from the North, according to her.
An exercise, certainly “not very woke” but very legal, of freedom of expression.
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