PARIS, 27 April 2004 — The French government said yesterday it will appeal a court’s ruling declaring illegal its deportation of an Algerian imam who endorsed wife beating and polygamy.
A statement from the Interior Ministry said the State Council had been asked to resolve the dispute surrounding the forced deportation of Abdelkader Bouziane, the 52-year-old imam of a mosque in a suburb of the eastern French city of Lyon.
Bouziane, who had been living in France for 24 years, was flown to Algeria Wednesday amid outrage sparked by an interview he gave to a magazine saying he had several wives, believed that “beating your wife is authorized by the Qur’an” especially in cases of infidelity, and said he hoped “the entire world becomes Muslim.”
Authorities said the comments confirmed the concerns that prompted a February deportation order on the grounds that he was a threat to public order.
Several other Muslim clerics have been removed from France in past months, mainly because they exhorted their followers to engage in a jihad, or holy war, against Israel or the United States.
An administrative tribunal yesterday upheld a ruling that the Interior Ministry had acted precipitously, removing Bouziane without first proving its charges against him.
Declassified intelligence reports on the imam presented to the court by the ministry failed to sway it.
France has stepped up its surveillance of suspected Islamic extremists in recent months, as have Britain, Germany, Spain and other EU states.
France has an estimated Muslim population of five million — Europe’s largest — and tensions have flared most recently over a government decision to ban headscarves in state schools.
Bouziane was in France on a renewable residency permit, and has 16 children, all of French nationality.
