France slams Israel’s forced deportation of French-Palestinian lawyer
Paris (QNN) France’s foreign ministry criticized Israel’s forced expulsion of French-Palestinian lawyer Salah Hammouri on Sunday, calling it “against the law”.
In a press release on Sunday, the French Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs said, “We condemn today the Israeli authorities’ decision, against the law, to expel Salah Hammouri to France.”
The French foreign ministry said Paris had been “fully mobilized, including at the highest level of the state, to ensure Salah Hamouri’s rights are respected, that he benefits from all possible assistance and that he can lead a normal life in Jerusalem, where he was born, resides and wishes to live.”
“France also took several steps to communicate to the Israeli authorities in the clearest way its opposition to this expulsion of a Palestinian resident of East Jerusalem, an occupied territory under the Fourth Geneva Convention,” the statement read.
French Member of Parliament Clementine Autain also slammed Salah’s expulsion, calling it “a catastrophe on Palestinian human rights.”
Salah Hamouri est expulsé en France après des mois de harcèlement judiciaire.
Constitutant un précédent juridique, cette nouvelle est catastrophique pour les droits humains et pour le sort des Palestiniens. La justice n'est pas bienvenue à Jérusalem.https://t.co/ennaZSv0Br
— Clémentine Autain (@Clem_Autain) December 18, 2022
This morning, the Israeli occupation Interior Ministry said that the French-Palestinian lawyer “was deported this morning to France following Interior Minister Ayelet Shaked’s decision to withdraw his residency status.”
The lawyer arrived on Sunday morning in Paris, where he was welcomed by his wife Elsa, politicians, representatives of rights groups, and supporters at the French capital’s Charles de Gaulle airport.
On his arrival, his supporters unfurled a banner saying “Welcome Salah” and some carried Palestinian flags. Around a dozen police officers were also at the airport.
Activists wait at Paris International Airport to receive Palestinian-French human rights defender Salah Hammouri who was expelled by the Israeli occupation authorities this morning to France. pic.twitter.com/E2QzbLTl9z
— Quds News Network (@QudsNen) December 18, 2022
Breaking: Palestinian-French human rights defender Salah Hammouri arrives in Paris after he was forcibly expelled by the Israeli occupation authorities to France this early morning. pic.twitter.com/YkV3VIcjBC
— Quds News Network (@QudsNen) December 18, 2022
Activists chant for Palestine as they welcome Palestinian-French lawyer Salah Hammouri at Paris Airport upon his forcible deportation by the Israeli occupation authorities to France. pic.twitter.com/VsrowQdcoN
— Quds News Network (@QudsNen) December 18, 2022
“It’s a happy day for a family reunited but for the Palestinian people, it’s a sad day,” said Amnesty International’s France chief, Jean-Claude Samouiller, describing the expulsion as a “crime of apartheid.”
Hammouri, 37, was arrested on March 7 at his home in the Kufr Aqab neighborhood of occupied East Jerusalem and since then has been in administrative detention.
In October 2021, Israeli occupation authorities revoked his East Jerusalem residency, denying him the right to live in his hometown, which ‘Israel’ captured in 1967 from Jordan.
In November, Israeli authorities said Hammouri would be forcibly deported to France because of his alleged “breach of allegiance to the State of Israel” and “based on secret evidence he cannot challenge.”
The expulsion, however, was delayed as his lawyers contested the case.
Hammouri is a human rights lawyer known for advocating for the rights of detainees, including torture survivors.
He is a researcher with the Palestinian prisoners’ rights NGO, Addameer. For his political activism, he has spent a total of eight years in Israeli prisons over different periods.
In 2005, ‘Israel’ sentenced him to seven years for an alleged Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) plot to assassinate Ovadia Yosef, a right-wing rabbi – an accusation he denied.
He was released in December 2011 as part of an exchange of Palestinian prisoners with Gaza.
Hammouri, who is married to a French national and has two children, has been unable to speak to his wife or see her since his arrest. In September, he staged a hunger strike to protest his conditions.
The #JusticeforSalah campaign said in September that Hammouri, who was held in the maximum security prison Hadarim, was moved into solitary confinement in a 2×2 square meter cell with no windows and a primitive toilet.
A statement from the Hammouri campaign called the deportation a “war crime” and said it constituted a breach of international law.
“Wherever a Palestinian goes, he takes with him these principles and the cause of his people: his homeland carried with him to wherever he ends up,” Hammouri said in a statement on the day of his forced deportation.
🚨BREAKING🚨
Salah’s words to his people on the day of his forced deportation and the war crime against him and against the people of Jerusalem.#justiceforsalah #liberezsalah pic.twitter.com/Y9AbsF1CfF— JusticeforSalah (@JusticeforSalah) December 18, 2022
In October, UN independent experts condemned Israel’s measures against Hammouri as “sadistic”.
“We are concerned by Israel’s pervasive misuse of administrative and criminal law proceedings and use of secret information against Palestinians, including human rights defenders such as Mr. Hammouri,” they said.
“The detention practices Mr. Hammouri is being subjected to are not just unlawful: they are sadistic.” Experts said Hammouri was at risk of expulsion due to his alleged involvement in “terrorist activities” and “breach of allegiance” to ‘Israel’.
