PARIS: France on Friday expelled a Palestinian activist to Egypt after a protracted court battle over her presence, police said.
Mariam Abu Daqqa, 72, is a leading member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) which is considered a “terrorist” organization by the European Union.
She was detained by police on Wednesday night after the State Council, France’s highest administrative court, overturned a lower court ruling that had suspended an interior ministry expulsion order.
Abu Daqqa had a 50 day visa to visit France to take part in conferences on the Middle East conflict. The ministry said that her presence was a risk after the deadly October 7 Hamas attacks against Israel.
She took part in two conferences that had been banned while in France.
Reached by phone at Paris Charles de Gaulle airport as she awaited a flight to Cairo, Abu Daqqa slammed her expulsion as “an attack against the right of Palestine to have a state, an identity, an existence.”
“The process that I have undergone is not worthy of a democratic government,” she said.
Her lawyers, Elsa Marcel and Marie David, told AFP they would launch further appeals and even take the case to the European Court of Human rights.
France, which has large Jewish and Muslim populations, has seen a spike in tensions amid the war between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
France expels Palestinian activist to Egypt
https://arab.news/6bgp4
France expels Palestinian activist to Egypt
- The ministry said that her presence was a risk after the deadly October 7 Hamas attacks against Israel
- Abu Daqqa slammed her expulsion as “an attack against the right of Palestine to have a state, an identity, an existence”
Trump ‘very disappointed’ with UK’s Starmer for blocking use of air bases, Telegraph says
- UK PM then said bases could be used in “defensive” operations
- Trump says it took “too long” for Starmer to change his mind
LONDON: Donald Trump said he was “very disappointed” with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer for not allowing the US to use the Diego Garcia air base to carry out strikes on Iran, the Daily Telegraph quoted the US president as saying in an interview.
Britain had reportedly initially denied the US permission to conduct air strikes from its bases, but on Sunday evening Starmer said he was accepting a request for their use in any “defensive” strikes the US wanted to make against Iranian targets.
In an interview published on Monday Trump told the British newspaper that it took “too long” for Starmer to change his mind.
“That’s probably never happened between our countries before,” he told the Telegraph, adding: “It sounds like he was worried about the legality.”
Trump said Starmer should have approved from the get-go the American use of Diego Garcia — a strategically important US-UK air base in the Indian Ocean — saying Iran was responsible for killing “a lot of people from your country.”
Britain was not involved in the joint US-Israel air strikes on Iran that killed the country’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei on Saturday.
Since attacks on Iran started on Saturday, Iran has been targeting Gulf countries with missiles, and on Sunday an Iranian-made drone hit Britain’s RAF Akrotiri base in Cyprus, causing limited damage and no casualties.
Trump said it was “useful” that the US would now be able to launch operations from Diego Garcia, as he also criticized a deal Starmer has made over the sovereignty of the Chagos Islands, where Diego Garcia is based.
