Imam of Pessac: what did he say about Hamas ?

The Interior Ministry has ordered the expulsion of Abdouramane Ridouane, Imam of Pessac by nationality Nigerien, this Thursday, August 8, because of pro-Hamas and hateful remarks towards the Jewish community.

While the courts had rendered a decision in favour of the renewal of the residence permit of the Imam of Pessac, Abdouramane Ridouane, of Nigerian nationality , the Interior Ministry finally ordered his expulsion on Thursday, August 8, according to information from Figaro.He is accused of making comments that are favorable to Hamas and hateful toward the Jewish community.

The first facts date back to 2019, the year in which he stated that he wanted to die for Islam and quoted the words of an Iranian sociologist who invited people to take up arms, specifying that:  "if you are not on the battlefield, it does not matter whether you are in the mosque or in the bar". According to the authorities, these statements were made "without any contextualization". In 2020, in a Facebook post, the imam compared Israel has a “coronavirus that infects the blood of the Palestinian people” and accused “the Jews” of engaging in “therapy (…) on the backs of the Palestinians”, while comparing the Israeli government to that of the Third Reich.

Hamas presented as a resistance movement

More recently, Abdouramane Ridouane presented Hamas as a resistance movement. In November 2023, he wrote: “the Palestinian people are fighters, resistance fighters, of which Hamas is a part”. He has also repeatedly relayed texts written by Palestinians who have been convicted of terrorism and justified their actions by claiming that they had been persecuted.”

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The imam is also accused of criticizing France's presence in Niger, which he considers to be colonialist. He notably threatened France with reprisals: “Come, we are not afraid of you, we will welcome you as you deserve…” homeland or death, we will win inshallah,” he defended.

Last May, he admitted these remarks during an appearance while refusing to see them as incitement to violence. On August 1, the courts ruled in favor of renewing his residence permit. But this Thursday, August 8, the Ministry of the Interior finally ordered to arrest him with a view to his expulsion from the territory. According to Le Figaro, Abdouramane Ridouane is still in the hands of the police, the time to "follow the procedure leading to his expulsion”, and to "coordinate with his country of origin".

His mosque suspected of being Salafist

The Gironde prefecture had refused to renew his residence permit since 2021, explaining that the man represented a "disturbance to public order". His mosque was subject to an administrative closure in 2022 for 6 months, due to suspicions concerning Salafist remarks and a possible glorification of terrorism. According to the administrative court, a disturbance to public order is not an obstacle to the renewal of a residence permit, which is why he obtained a favorable decision on August 1.

It is therefore through another procedure that the Ministry of the Interior arrested the imam on Thursday, August 8. According to the order expulsion, Abdouramane Ridouane "does not hesitate to "draw a parallel between the current situation of Muslims and that of Jews during the Second World War", and considers his lexical field as "likely to stir up hatred in the Muslim community towards Israel and the West".