Mohamed Hammami, Radical Tunisian Imam, Expelled From France

PARIS -- France says it has deported a radical Muslim preacher known for his anti-Semitic speeches and calls for violent holy war.

Mohamed Hammami, who preached at the Omar Mosque in Paris, was expelled to his home country of Tunisia on Wednesday.

France's Interior Ministry said in a statement that Hammami was expelled for his "deliberate, repeated and unacceptable provocations," which constitute a threat to France's society and security.

The ministry says in addition to his anti-Semitic speeches and calls for holy war, Hammami also drew condemnation over his defense of violence towards women.

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• A picture taken on February 7, 2011 shows a mid 1930' Sinai Bedouin wedding costume and a head finery called burqa, one of the 150 marriage and other festive pieces and accessories displayed during the exhibition LOrient des Femmes (Women in Orient) whose artistic direction was given to French fashion designer Christian Lacroix at the Branly's Museum in Paris. (PIERRE VERDY/AFP/Getty Images)

• A model walks the runway during the Islamic Fashion Festival in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, Tuesday, Nov. 15, 2011. (AP Photo/Vincent Thian)

• A model walks the runway during the Islamic Fashion Festival in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, Tuesday, Nov. 15, 2011. (AP Photo/Vincent Thian)

• A model walks the runway during the Islamic Fashion Festival in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, Tuesday, Nov. 15, 2011. (AP Photo/Vincent Thian)

• A model walks the runway during the Islamic Fashion Festival in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, Tuesday, Nov. 15, 2011. (AP Photo/Vincent Thian)

• A model walks the runway during the Islamic Fashion Festival in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, Tuesday, Nov. 15, 2011. (AP Photo/Vincent Thian)

• A model walks the runway during the Islamic Fashion Festival in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, Tuesday, Nov. 15, 2011. (AP Photo/Vincent Thian)

• A model wears a creation by Australian designer Amalina Aman during the Islamic Fashion Festival in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, Wednesday, Nov. 16, 2011. (AP Photo/Vincent Thian)

• A model wears a creation of Indonesian designer Paul Robb during the Islamic Fashion Festival in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, Wednesday, Nov. 16, 2011. (AP Photo/Vincent Thian)

• Model wears creations by Malaysian designer Jarumas during the Islamic Fashion Festival in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, Wednesday, Nov. 16, 2011. (AP Photo/Vincent Thian)

• A model wears the creation by Abang Saufi from Malaysia during the Islamic Fashion Festival in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, Wednesday, Nov. 16, 2011. (AP Photo/Vincent Thian)

• Models wear creations of Australian designer Amalina Aman during the Islamic Fashion Festival in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, Wednesday, Nov. 16, 2011. (AP Photo/Vincent Thian)

• A model wears a creation by Abang Saufi from Malaysia during the Islamic Fashion Festival in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, Wednesday, Nov. 16, 2011. (AP Photo/Vincent Thian)

• A model presents creations of Indonesian fashion designer Anne Rufaidah during an Islamic fashion show at a sports center in Jakarta, Indonesia, Sunday, Dec. 11, 2011. It was a kickoff show to announce an Indonesian Muslim fashion show during the International Fair of the Muslim World from Dec. 17 to 19 in Paris. (AP Photo/Tatan Syuflana)

• A model presents creations of Indonesian fashion designer Dian Pelangi during an Islamic fashion show at a sports center in Jakarta, Indonesia, Sunday, Dec. 11, 2011. (AP Photo/Tatan Syuflana)

• A model presents creations of Indonesian fashion designer Malik Moestaram during an Islamic fashion show at a sports center in Jakarta, Indonesia, Sunday, Dec. 11, 2011. (AP Photo/Tatan Syuflana)

• A model presents creations of Indonesian fashion designer Boyonz Ilyas during an Islamic fashion show at a sports center in Jakarta, Indonesia, Sunday, Dec. 11, 2011. (AP Photo/Tatan Syuflana)

• A model presents a creation by Pakistani

  A model presents a creation by Pakistani designer Athar Hafeez during the Pakistan Fashion Week in Karachi on November 5, 2009. (ASIF HASSAN/AFP/Getty Images)

Comments

[Thor Nygaard]

01:30 AM on 11/03/2012

Why should the west embrace islam, an increasingly fascist political ideology, when many muslims themselves are hellbent on monoculturalism?

In this age of globalization, western governments MUST exercise stricter control over whom gets inside their borders, and what their politics are.

[ahmetepic]

03:36 PM on 11/02/2012

The very civilised French recently opened an exhibition of Islamic Art at the Louvre Museum. There're very fine and rare pieces of artwork in there; all stolen and pillaged from Muslim countries at the turn of 20th century by the French colonialists. Especially striking are the priceless tiles they removed from the mosques in Istanbul between 1919-1921. While being at sending things back to their original places(like that Tunisian cleric) perhaps they could be kind enough to return the riches that they stole to the lands to which they belong!..

[Porphrygenitos]

07:02 PM on 11/02/2012

Lets change the subject hey, and try and imply that those French had it coming. But if we're going to talk about Istanbul, and theft and pillaging why don't we talk about the 1955 Turkish state organised riots against the Greek Christian minority which destroyed 4,000 Greek-owned businesses, 110 hotels, 27 pharmacies, 23 schools, 21 factories, 73 Greek (and other Christian) churches. This was just the beginning of a state supported campaign by Turkey to rid itself of its remnant Greek Christian community. Today Istanbul's Greek population is down to 2,500, from 80,000-100,000 at the time of the riots. Many if not all of those who left lost nearly all of their belongings which were confiscated by the Turkish state.

Makes your tiles look like pretty small beer doesn't it?

[Thor Nygaard]

01:28 AM on 11/03/2012

Let's not forget the armenian genocide. Or the systematic extermination and ethnic cleansing of all ethnic and religious minorities in that country for the past several hundred years. All part of the great turkisk monoculture project.

[ahmetepic]

04:07 AM on 11/03/2012

I agree with you entirely. The 1955 Greek pogrom is one of the darkest moments in modern Turkish history. It was the secretive, fascist organisation called "Ergenekon", ruled by the military which was behind those attacks. The idea was to destroy the Greek minority in Istanbul and to discredit the democratically elected Menderes government. The premier Menderes didn't know a thing about that barbarism. Yet he was accused of organising the attacks, after he was deposed by a coup by the military in 1960. Ottoman-Turkish history is also a struggle between the military and the democratic forces. Now it turn out that the same organisation is responsible for provocations in Cyprus before the Turkish invasion. I'm glad that "The Ergenekon" thugs are finally being tried by the courts. I think the Greeks of Istanbul who lost everything during that time should receive compensations and a big apology from the Turkish government. But of course this does not at all justify the theft of the tiles by the French...

[WhatName]

11:42 PM on 11/02/2012

Muslim imperialist who plundered Middle East, Africa, India, Spain. Byzantium and sold millions into slavery deserve to get nothing back. Nothing.

[ahmetepic]

04:09 AM on 11/03/2012

We want those lively tiles and many other historical artifacts stolen from Turkey anyway...

[EugenioCL]

01:00 PM on 11/02/2012

Good. Extremism has no place in any modern society.

[EastOverWest]

10:05 AM on 11/02/2012

Learn from the Western world's mistakes, and reject multiculturalism in your country.

[harmlesstree]

10:52 AM on 11/02/2012

Yes, after all the United States, with it English, Dutch, French, German, Irish, Scandinavian Polish, Jewish, Eastern European, African, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, other Asians, Indian, Hispanic, Native American, and all the other groups that have come here has been an abject failure.

And France with its Gallic, Roman, Greek, Gallo-Roman, Norman, Basque, Burgundian, Germanic, and Frankish cultural mix is a mistake mistake that France is still reeling from!

And the Roman empire with its Roman, Latin, Italian, Celtic, Gallic, Germanic Spanish, Carthaginian, North African, Egyptian, Greek, Jewish, Arab, Syrian, etc etc etc was a mistake.

[mashud]

11:57 AM on 11/02/2012

lol nice one.

[Porphrygenitos]

12:30 PM on 11/02/2012

All 3 examples you cite are cultures that have been open to outside influences, not societies that encouraged cultural apartheid, which is what multiculturalism has come to mean in the West, especially in Europe .

The US has traditionally had the melting pot which immigrants are expected to assimilate into. How many descendents of immigrants still speak their ancestral tongues of German, Slovak etc.

France has had a settled culture for a millennia or so. Granted there are areas that until recently still had their own patois, but I don't know of any Gallic-Roman or Greek minorities.

And the Roman Empire please! The Empire had one culture, Roman, although they proved unusually open to outsiders who were willing to adapt to their culture, witness how many emperors came from Spain, the Balkans and Africa and so on. Roman religion was also very syncretic and capable of absorbing local deities into its pantheon which greatly helped in the process of assimilation.

Cultural apartheid and the rejection of the host culture by minorities will sooner or later result in political fragmentation as well. Why are minority cultures going to respect the laws and customs of the host culture when they have zero respect for that cultures values upon which the laws are based.

[HumanityEqualsLaw]

09:11 AM on 11/02/2012

Common sense must prevail and these extremist preachers and their followers need to get sent away. They absolutely have no place in modern Europe, the same standards on hate speech and incitement must be applied to all including the far left´s pet project.
On a more general level the advocates of open borders are having a harder and harder time justifying their position as the problems surface despite the efforts to sweep them under the rug. The economic cost, the cultural differences, ghettos, disrupting social cohesion, polarisation of societies, rise in crime, disgruntled citizens and so on and so on..

[Charlotte Bonnie]

07:51 AM on 11/02/2012

Good riddance. France is swarming with these anti-West anti-secularism barbarians though. It is time France take a tougher measure against them if they want to preserve their modernity.

[rg9rts]

04:29 AM on 11/02/2012

Another shining example of love and tolerance of Islam.

[WhatName]

01:51 PM on 11/02/2012

but...but... may be his mother didn't love him.
May be his father didn't buy him a falafel ion his 7th birthday... sniff...sniff.

[Gooner13]

03:18 AM on 11/02/2012

Lets start preaching anti muslim speeches. Lets start preaching a holy war against muslims. Lets start seeing how those hypocrites and there leftie friends like it.

[WhatName]

01:51 PM on 11/02/2012

AllauAkbar!!!!

[WhatName]

12:37 AM on 11/02/2012

Finally, European establishment, after decades of multiculturist dictatorship, is coming to its senses.
Even the center-socialists are realizing these rabid religious fanatics simply not belong in modern Europe.
Hope it's not too late.

[Whistleman]

01:40 AM on 11/02/2012

I fear it may already be too late. I can easily see an intifada in the next couple of decades, remember they already had a test run in 2005.

[Luuke]

10:32 PM on 11/01/2012

England you need b@lls like these which you'll clearly lack..Took you'll 15 years to deport the hook ????

[Luuke]

10:28 PM on 11/01/2012

Com'on France...The gloves are off ....

[sweetpatriot]

10:15 PM on 11/01/2012

Wow france

[darrtown]

10:05 PM on 11/01/2012

The imam will still be free to say detestable things and he will likely have a wider audience in Tunisia.

[Luuke]

10:18 PM on 11/01/2012

but won''t get the coverage for his intended audience in France and in Tunisia they've got tons of preachers like him so he'll have to wait in line

[mashud]

11:58 AM on 11/02/2012

hehe nice one.

[jeighjoans]

09:46 PM on 11/01/2012

sounds like the thing to do. I know if their was a guest in my house espousing anti-homeowner opinions and calling for holywar, I'd put him and everybody that agreed with him out.

[gimmeanamethen]

09:28 PM on 11/01/2012

I bet it never took france 10 years to get him deported!