French academic institute bans pro-Palestine conference

The prestigious Paris Institute of Political Studies — known as Sciences Po — has banned a conference organised by French-Palestinian MEP Rima Hassan that was scheduled to be held on Friday, Hassan announced on X yesterday. The director of the institute, Luis Vassy, did not give permission for the conference to go ahead “due to the risk of disturbing public order,” she explained.

“This censorship of voices that denounce the ongoing genocide is unbearable!” said the member of the European Parliament for the France Insoumise Party.

Hassan, who is known for her controversial statements about Israel, is being investigated for “advocating terrorism” after saying in an interview regarding 7 October 2023 that it was “true” that the Palestinian Islamic Resistance Movement, Hamas was carrying out a legitimate action. She insists that there was some misleading editing of her response.

The 32-year-old lawyer was scheduled to hold a joint conference with Jean-Luc Melenchon on the situation in the Palestinian enclave at the University of Lille in April, but that event was also banned by the educational institution. The following month, the University of Paris-Dauphine cancelled a similar conference by Hassan, but the decision was overturned by the courts.

Moreover, the French authorities banned a conference by the French-Palestinian lawyer Salah Hamouri, which was scheduled for Monday evening in the suburbs of Lyon, also due to “the risk of disturbing public order”.

The police commander’s decision claimed the conference was “taking place in a highly tense geopolitical context” and that there may be an expression of “anti-Semitic statements, or deliberate and explicit incitement of hatred in general” at the conference.

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