the Council of State confirms the expulsion of an imam from Toulouse
The Council of State confirmed on Thursday May 23 the rejection by administrative justice of the emergency appeal filed by an imam from Toulouse against his expulsion in April for hateful remarks against Jews, according to a decision consulted by AFP.
Sentenced in 2022 to four months of suspended imprisonment for having made the said remarks during a sermon, the imam of the Great Mosque of Toulouse, Mohamed Tataïat, was arrested at his home on April 19, with the authorization of the judge of freedoms and detention, then deported.
Appeal dismissed
His lawyers then filed an appeal before the judge, denouncing an expeditious expulsion and not taking into account his exemplary behavior since the criticized sermon, delivered in 2017.
This appeal was, however, rejected by the Paris administrative court, a decision confirmed by the Council of State. The Minister of the Interior Gérald Darmanin, who had signed the expulsion order, took note of the decision of the Council of State on X (formerly Twitter), welcoming the “firmness” and the“effectiveness of immigration law”.
Firmness and effectiveness of the immigration law:
The Council of State confirms the expulsion carried out in less than 24 hours of an “imam” from Toulouse who preached hatred and was condemned by the courts for his anti-Semitic remarks. https://t.co/e1nzabyRWL— Gérald DARMANIN (@GDarmanin) May 23, 2024
“Explicit and deliberate incitement to discrimination”
Vincent Brengarth, Mohamed Tataïat's lawyer, announced his intention to file a new appeal, on the merits this time, and assured that his client had “continued his preaching without the slightest incident since 2017” And “that no threat to public order (had) been demonstrated by the administration”.
In its order at the end of April, the court considered that the words of the Toulouse imam“constitute an explicit and deliberate provocation to discrimination, hatred and violence against a group of people – in this case, the Jews –, and have particular resonance and seriousness since the attack of October 7, 2023 carried out by Hamas against Israel ».
Arriving in France in 1985, Mohamed Tataïat moved to Toulouse two years later to work at the mosque in the Empalot district.
