justice rejects request for annulment
The Paris administrative court rejected on Monday March 11 the request for annulment of the expulsion order of Moroccan imam Hassan Iquioussen, a decision which Gérald Darmanin had made in 2022 a symbol of the government’s fight against “separatist speeches”.
The court indicates in a press release “rejection(er) of Mr. Iquioussen’s request for the annulment of the expulsion decision taken by the Minister of the Interior on July 29, 2022”judging that the imam “committed repeated acts of explicit and deliberate provocation to discrimination, hatred or violence against Jews, women and non-Muslims”.
A registered preacher S
These acts justify, according to the court, “his expulsion, despite his family ties to France, where he has resided since his birth”.
At the end of July 2022, the Minister of the Interior announced the expulsion of Hassan Iquioussen, a preacher from the North listed as S (for state security) by the intelligence services. The order signed by the minister 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”.
But the imam was nowhere to be found when the expulsion order was validated by the Council of State on August 31, 2022. He had fled to Belgium before being arrested there, then deported to Morocco in January 2023.
On February 26, the administrative court, which had urgently suspended the expulsion at the beginning of August 2022, studied the case on the merits, an appeal in excess of its powers in which the 59-year-old applicant requests in particular a residence permit. It was questioned during the hearing whether or not the comments and videos of Hassan Iquioussen, between 2003 and 2019, harmed state security.
Possible recourses
The Ministry of the Interior considered that the expulsion order was justified by the reiteration over several years of a “systematic discourse”, “without nuance” and anti-Semitic. It is about freedom of opinion and not provocation, argued Hassan Iquioussen’s lawyer, Me Lucie Simon, regretting that the ministry relies on “truncated quotes” and old facts that do not represent a current threat.
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 obtain it. His five children and 18 grandchildren are French and based in the Nord department.
Hassan Iquioussen can still appeal to the Paris Administrative Court of Appeal, then to the Council of State, and ultimately to the European Court of Human Rights.
