Pauline Ertel, Paris<\/a><\/b><\/p>\nSince her election in 2024, Rima Hassan has been cast as "the enemy within" in the eyes of the French political establishment: she has to endure a barrage of judicial, media and political pressure as an outspoken advocate for the Palestinian cause.<\/p>\n
A French-Palestinian MEP is set to stand trial on Tuesday on charges of \u201eglorifying terrorism\u201d \u2013 a French legal category that criminalises forms of expression that allegedly support or portray terrorist acts in a positive light. On the eve of his trial, the MEP told Middle East Eye that it was all part of a coordinated campaign against him for speaking out for Palestine.<\/p>\n
The lawsuit is the latest attempt to take legal action against Hassan for criticizing the Israeli occupation and genocide. In two years, 16 legal cases have been filed against him, 13 of which have been dismissed without further action. Hassan said he had been under intense judicial and political pressure in recent months and described disproportionate investigative measures, including violations of his parliamentary immunity, retrospective surveillance, and the dissemination of false information following his arrest in April.<\/p>\n
\u201eThis practice is part of a political climate in which Palestinians, or those perceived as such, are too often treated as suspects before being treated as citizens,\u201d the MP said.<\/p>\n
On April 2, the MEP for \u201eLa France Insoumise\u201d (LFI) was taken into police custody after sharing a quote on social media from Okamote Kozo, the Japanese militant convicted for his role in the 1972 Lodi airport attack that killed 26 people. Hassan\u2019s team said the quote \u201ereferred to a principle at the heart of international law: the right of peoples to resist colonialism and occupation by foreign armies.\u201d Hassan deleted the post to avoid any misunderstanding.<\/p>\n
The post was reported by Matthias Renault, a representative of the far-right National Rally, the French Interior Minister, the European Jewish Organization (OJE), and the League Against Racism and Anti-Semitism (Licra).<\/p>\n
Hassan\u2019s team says the MP was detained for more than 13 hours on April 2, despite his parliamentary immunity. Since Hassan became the first French MEP of Palestinian origin when he was elected in June 2024, his team says the harassment is aimed at silencing and discrediting a political opponent. While in custody, Hassan says he was asked questions about his identity, origin and religion that were \u201ein no way related to the alleged facts.\u201d.<\/p>\n
Through his lawyer, Hassan learned that \u201etotally disproportionate\u201d investigative resources had been mobilized against him: his phone was monitored retroactively from the beginning of the year, and his travels were reconstructed between January and March by requesting data from the SNCF and Thalys railway companies, as well as Air France and Europol.<\/p>\n
\u201e"Disinformation Operation"\u201d<\/h3>\n
During his detention, false information was leaked to the press that he had drugs in his possession, violating the confidentiality of the investigation. The Chained Duck<\/i> Justice Department spokesman Sacha Straub-Kahn was directly involved in spreading the false accusations, according to Hassan. It was a \u201ereal disinformation campaign\u201d aimed at diverting the political debate and tarnishing his reputation.<\/p>\n\u201eReversal of responsibility\u201d<\/h3>\n
The case against Hassan is part of a broader political offensive aimed at delegitimizing pro-Palestinian solidarity. According to Justice Department data, the number of \u201eglorification of terrorism\u201d charges tripled between October 2023 and November 2024 compared to the beginning of 2023.<\/p>\n
Marc Tr\u00e9vidic, a former investigating judge in the Paris anti-terror unit, spoke of \u201ethe misuse of anti-terror laws.\u201d Hassan\u2019s legal team sees the case as an example of \u201ereversal of responsibility\u201d: \u201eThey are prosecuting those who report genocide, not those who commit it.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201eThe aim of diverting the public debate to the courts is to make any criticism of the Israeli government\u2019s policies politically costly. It is a way of silencing political voices rather than democratic responses,\u201d said Hassan, who hopes to be found not guilty at his trial on July 7.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A \u201eterrorizmus dics\u0151\u00edt\u00e9se\u201d miatt ind\u00edtott pere el\u0151tt Rima Hassan a Middle East Eye-nak (MEE) elmondta: kiterjedt megfigyel\u00e9si eszk\u00f6z\u00f6kkel \u00e9s nyom\u00e1ssal pr\u00f3b\u00e1lj\u00e1k elhallgattatni a Palesztin\u00e1val val\u00f3 szolidarit\u00e1s\u00e1t. \u00cdrta: Pauline Ertel, P\u00e1rizs A 2024-es megv\u00e1laszt\u00e1sa \u00f3ta Rima Hassan a francia politikai establishment szem\u00e9ben \u201ea bels\u0151 ellens\u00e9g\u201d szerep\u00e9be ker\u00fclt: b\u00edr\u00f3i, m\u00e9dia- \u00e9s politikai nyom\u00e1s \u00f6sszt\u00fcz\u00e9t kell elviselnie a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3384,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"googlesitekit_rrm_CAowjNHLDA:productID":"","rs_blank_template":"","rs_page_bg_color":"","slide_template_v7":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"wpai_generated_summary":"","tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3383","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-izrael-igazi-arca"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/antipropaganda.hu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3383","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/antipropaganda.hu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/antipropaganda.hu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/antipropaganda.hu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/antipropaganda.hu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3383"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/antipropaganda.hu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3383\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/antipropaganda.hu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3384"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/antipropaganda.hu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3383"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/antipropaganda.hu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3383"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/antipropaganda.hu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3383"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}