The Interior Ministry accused the Palestine Action Committee and the Palestine collective will defeat “appeal to hatred, discrimination, violence”, and “provocation to terrorist acts”. The State will have to pay 3,000 euros to each association.
Le Monde with AFP
The Council of State suspended, Friday, April 29, the execution of the decrees of dissolution of the Palestine Action Committee and the Palestine collective defeated, published on March 9 by the Ministry of the Interior, which accused them these associations of “Call for hatred, discrimination, violence”, and “provocation to terrorist acts”.
With regard to the Palestine Action Committee, the dissolution measure “undermines a serious and manifestly illegal damage to freedom of association and freedom of expression”, writes in its decision the Council of State , seized in summary proceedings by the association.
The Palestine Action Committee had notably been criticized by the authorities for “relaying the press releases” and “reporting on the activity of Palestinian terrorist organizations, notably Hamas, the Islamic Jihad movement in Palestine and the Hezbollah “. The association affirms “in its charter its support for all organizations fighting against Israel, including when they use violence or terrorist methods”, also noted the Ministry of the Interior.
“The positions set out by the association’s publications (…) cannot (…) be regarded as causing discrimination, hatred or violence against a group of people”, according to the highest Administrative jurisdiction. Nor can they be “qualified as acts in order to cause acts of terrorism”, at this stage of education, according to magistrates.
“A real camouflet against power”
“This is a precious victory for the rule of law, which sanctions the political instrumentalization of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict of the Ministry of the Interior,” reacted to the France-Presse agency ( AFP) M e Vincent Brengarth, the lawyer for the Palestine Action Committee.
Concerning the Palestine collective will defeat, the Ministry of the Interior accused him of “cultivating the feeling of oppression of” Muslim peoples “(…) with the aim of disseminating the idea of Islamophobia to the international scale “,” under the guise of defending the Palestinian cause “. The ministry also criticized him for calling “to discrimination and hatred towards Israel and the Israelis”, in particular through boycott campaigns.
The Boycott call “translates the expression of a protest opinion and cannot by itself (…) be regarded as a provocation or a contribution to discrimination, hatred or violence against a group of anyone, “recalls the State Council.
“This is a first victory (…) Pending the judgment of the appeal in cancellation”, was delighted on its site the Palestine collective will defeat . “This decision is a real camouflet against power and beats propaganda from the far right Zionist and its amalgams between anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism,” he adds.
The State will have to pay 3,000 euros to each of the two associations. Solicited by AFP, the Ministry of the Interior did not wish to comment.