Anti-Semitic sermon at the great mosque of Toulouse: the appeal judgment of Imam Tataiat put under deliberation today
The judgment of the appeal trial of Imam Mohamed Tataiat, prosecuted for incitement to violence or racial hatred after a sermon against Jews in 2017, must be deliberated on Wednesday August 31 in Toulouse (Haute-Garonne).
In the aftermath of the validation by the Council of State of the expulsion of Imam Hassan Iquioussen, author in particular of anti-Semitic remarks and on the inferiority of women, the Toulouse Court of Appeal must deliberate on the judgment on appeal. of another Muslim preacher in turmoil, Mohamed Tataiat (sometimes spelled Tatai, editor’s note).
On December 15, 2017, within the great mosque of Toulouse (Haute-Garonne), this religious had delivered a sermon in which he had integrated a hadith proclaiming: “the day of judgment will only come when Muslims fight the Jews, the Jew will hide behind the tree and the stone, and the tree and the stone will say: ‘Oh Muslim, oh servant of God, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him, except Algharqada, who is the one of the trees of the Jews”.
The words were spoken amid tension between Palestine and Israel, as then-US President Donald Trump announced his intention to move the US Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.
incitement to take action or “mere imprudent remarks”?
During the trial before the Toulouse Court of Appeal, on May 30, the public prosecutor had revealed that “one cannot quote a religious text in a context and in circumstances such (…) that this quotation instills in fragile minds, unenlightened, impulses of hatred, impulses to take action, ”reported AFP. And the lawyer for the National Bureau of Vigilance against Anti-Semitism (one of the many civil party associations) recalls that Mohamed Merah had indicated “having wanted to avenge Palestinian children” when he shot seven people, including three Jewish children, in 2012 in Toulouse.
The public prosecutor demanded a six-month suspended prison sentence and a fine of 10,000 euros. As a reminder, in the first instance, the imam had been released, the criminal court considering that there was no “desire to provoke hatred” in the sermon.
Mohamed Tataiat, of Algerian nationality (he has lived in France since 1985) and was only invited via an interpreter, had indicated that the hadith was a “warning” to Muslims so that they did not fight the Jews. His lawyers expressed themselves as a criticism of the State of Israel but not as “an incitement to kill Jews”. They also called on each other not to criminalize remarks that they recognized as “reckless”.
For information, no expulsion proceedings have been brought against the imam. At the time of his indictment in 2019, Laurent Wauquiez, then president of the Republicans, had asked for itjust like the mayor LR de Lavaur, Bernard Carayonbefore him.