Imagine the embarrassment of French authorities when they discover that Mohamed Tataiat is no “extremist,” but was merely quoting a hadith that has Muhammad saying: “The last hour would not come unless the Muslims will fight against the Jews and the Muslims would kill them until the Jews would hide themselves behind a stone or a tree and a stone or a tree would say: Muslim, or the servant of Allah, there is a Jew behind me; come and kill him; but the tree Gharqad would not say, for it is the tree of the Jews.” (Sahih Muslim 6985)
Jean Iglésis, Tataiat’s lawyer, said: “The comments he made come from reading a text that is part of the corpus of Islam. Incriminating this reading can pose a major problem for all religions.” Iglésis is right. If it is going to say that this material cannot be quoted in France, it shouldn’t have brought in all these people who believe in it, and French authorities have a problem that is much larger than Mohamed Tataiat.
“Toulouse Court of Appeal gives Imam Mohamed Tataiat 4 month suspended sentence for an anti-Semitic sermon,” translated from “L’imam Mohamed Tataiat condamné à 4 mois avec sursis pour un prêche antisémite par la cour d’appel de Toulouse,” by Remi Buhagiar, La Depeche, August 31, 2022 (thanks to Medforth):
New episode in the Mohamed Tataiat case. Four and a half years after the start of the investigation, the Imam was sentenced by the Toulouse Court of Appeal to a four-month suspended prison sentence and a fine of around €30,000. On the day of the trial, the Advocate General had requested a 6-month suspended prison sentence and a fine of €10,000.
By this decision, the justice considers that he indeed delivered an anti-Semitic sermon on December 15, 2017, between the walls of the mosque located in the Empalot district, in Toulouse. A speech read in Arabic and broadcast live on YouTube, in which he incited his followers to kill the Jews. “A dangerous speech, which leads to anti-Semitic violence,” estimated Hassen Chalghoumi, the president of the conference of Imams of France, on May 30 before the court of appeal.
During the investigation conducted by the police, several interpreters had translated these words by the following sentence: “The last judgment will not come until the Muslims fight the Jews.” Yet, according to Mohamed Tataiat, “it was not an order but a warning for Muslims not to participate in this movement. Otherwise it will be the end of the world. This sentence has been decontextualized.”
6 months in prison required
Facing the magistrates on the day of the trial, the Imam even assured them that all the Salafists of the Empalot mosque were dismissed. “My client considers that he has committed no wrongdoing. The comments he made come from reading a text that is part of the corpus of Islam. Incriminating this reading can pose a major problem for all religions,” said Me Jean Iglésis, the Imam’s lawyer, absent during the reading of the deliberation. “He is sick,” specifies his counsel. Associations that fight against anti-Semitism welcome this decision. “This deliberation is satisfactory. We have heard very explicit references to terrorist leaders. For us, there is no ambiguity. The Court of Appeal was not mistaken,” says Jacques Samuel, the lawyer for the civil parties. However, the case is not over, since the representative of Mohamed Tataiat announced that his client would appeal to the Court of Cassation.
