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Rabat – France’s Council of State, the country’s highest administrative court, gave permission on August 30 to expel Moroccan Imam Hassan Iquioussen, after a request from Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin.
The Administrative Court of Paris had previously suspended the imam’s expulsion, but Darmanin filed an appeal against the court’s ruling. In late July, France’s Ministry of the Interior issued an expulsion order for Iquioussen, alleging that he had given “a proselytizing speech interspersed with incitements of hatred and discrimination.”
The ministry added that Iquioussen was “promoting a vision of Islam contradicting the values of the Republic.”
But the Paris court suspended the ministry’s expulsion order, saying it would be “a disproportionate attack on his [the imam’s] private and family life.”
The Moroccan imam was accused of being anti-semitic, with the ministry particularly citing one sermon where he reportedly advocated for the “submission of women for the benefit of men.”
The expulsion order also cited the imam’s “contempt for certain republican values such as secularism and the democratic functioning of French society.”
Iquioussen’s lawyer, Lucie Simon, reacted on Twitter by saying the decision came “in an alarming context of pressure from the executive on the judiciary.”
The lawyer said the Paris Administrative Court will still have to investigate the merits of the case, and that Iquioussen plans to appeal the decision.
“Generally, discriminations cannot be fought by fueling others,” the lawyer’s statement concluded.
Darmanin himself celebrated the decision, tweeting: “The Council of State validated the expulsion of Mr. Iquioussen who holds and propagates views that are anti-semitic and contradictory to equality between men and women.”
He continued, “This is a great victory for the Republic. He will be expelled from national territory.”
Iquioussen was born in France in 1964, but still remains a Moroccan national, as his father was among the first wave of Moroccan migrants to France.
Read also: NGO Slams France for Threatening to Expel French-Born Moroccan Imam
