A Toulouse imam sentenced to a suspended sentence for incitement “to violence or racial hatred”
The sentence follows a 2017 prayer circulated on social media. The Toulouse Court of Appeal sentenced Imam Mohamed Tataiat on Wednesday August 31, 2022 to a four-month suspended prison sentence for incitement “to violence or racial hatred”, indicates theAFP. The attorney general had requested a six-month suspended prison sentence.
During the hearing of May 30, 2022, the debates focused on a hadith (word of the Prophet Muhammad) included by the imam in his prayer of December 15, 2017 at the mosque in the popular district of Empalot, in Toulouse. It proclaimed: “The day of judgment will only come when the 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, which is one of the trees of the Jews’”.
Several associations have instituted civil proceedings
This plea was made in a context of tensions between Palestinians and Israelis, after the announcement by former US President Donald Trump of his intention to transfer the US Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, specifies theAFP. Trained in Arabic through an interpreter, the Algerian imam, who has lived in France since 1985, assured that he “did not invite Muslims to fight Jews or Israelis” but, on the contrary, “not to participate in the movement that leads to this tragic end”.
On September 14, 2021, the Toulouse Criminal Court acquitted the imam, but the prosecution immediately appealed. Nearly a dozen associations had brought civil action including Licra, Crif, SOS racism or the General Alliance against racism and for the respect of French and Christian identity (Agrif, close to fundamentalist Catholics) . The Court of Appeal also sentenced Mohamed Tataiat to pay nearly €20,000 in damages to these associations.
“The door open to a police of religion”
After the conviction, the imam’s lawyer, Jean Iglesis, immediately announced his intention to appeal to the Court of Cassation. For him, the court’s decision risks being “the door open to a police of religion”.“It is a totally punitive decision, dictated by considerations that practice the law”revealed William Bourdon and Vincent Brengarth, two other lawyers for Mohamed Tataiat.
On the other hand, the lawyer for one of the civil parties, the Ben Gurion association, Jacques Samuel, expressed his ” Satisfaction “ and sons “relaxation”considering that the court had “seized the duplicity of the proposals” by Mohamed Tataiat.