Abdourahmane Ridouane had obtained a court decision on Thursday, August 1, requiring the State to regularize his residence permit. But the Ministry of the Interior ordered his expulsion
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The imam of Pessac (Gironde), Abdourahmane Ridouane, accused of advocating terrorism, was arrested this Thursday morning with a view to being expelled, franceinfo learned on Thursday, August 8, from a source close to the case, confirming information from Le Figaro. According to the expulsion order consulted by franceinfo, among the reasons cited by the Ministry of the Interior, we can read that the imam “has published for several years numerous texts aimed, under the guise of denouncing the discrimination suffered by the Muslim community or the persecution, by Israel and its allies, of the Palestinian people, at inciting hatred or discrimination against the State, non-Muslims or Jews or the rejection of the values of the Republic.”
The Interior Ministry also claims that “under the guise of supporting the Palestinian people, Abdourahmane Ridouane participates in the dissemination of publications with anti-Semitic and hateful content against Israel and the Jews.” The order adds that the imam supports Hamas and that this support “echoes his many statements and positions tending to promote, without any contextualization, jihad and to advocate terrorism.”
Finally, the decree stipulates that it “It emerges from all of these elements that Abdourahmane Ridouane constantly displays virulent contempt for the State, which he describes as racist, Islamophobic and colonialist.”
The text also recalls that the imam has been residing regularly in France for over 20 years, that he is married to a Moroccan national and that he has no children. A situation which prevents him from “to avail oneself of protections against expulsion.”
It should be noted that in parallel, on Thursday 1 August, the administrative court of Bordeaux had given the Gironde prefecture one month to regularise the imam of Pessac. The Gironde prefect refused to issue him with a renewal of his residence permit. The imam was the subject of an expulsion procedure that he was contesting. After three years of proceedings, the court had finally ruled in his favour by suspending the prefect’s refusal not to renew his ten-year residence permit.