Imane Maarifi, a French nurse who spent fifteen days in Gaza and testified on the horrors she saw there has just been arrested by the French police at her home.
Imane Maarifi’s arrest, search of her home ‘in front of family leaves no doubt about the desire to intimidate the voices that are raised to support the Palestinian people and demand an immediate ceasefire,’ says France Unbowed (LFI) party lawmaker The arrest of Imane Maarifi, a French nurse who spent 15 days in the Gaza Strip, sparked backlash Thursday in France. Lawyer Rafik Chekkat, founder of the Islamophobia platform, said Maarifi was arrested in the morning at her home and taken into custody. He criticized the arrest and said it took place at a time when French soldiers who fought in Gaza “enjoy total impunity.” Thomas Portes, a lawmaker from the La France Insoumise, or France Unbowed (LFI) party, wrote that Maarifi has been released from custody. “The search of the home in front of the family leaves no doubt about the desire to intimidate the voices that are raised to support the Palestinian people and demand an immediate ceasefire,” he wrote on X. Maarifi attended pro-Palestinian rallies in France to share her testimony about the crippling situation in Gaza. She has also expressed her demand for an immediate cease-fire in Gaza and a boycott of companies supporting Israel. Maarifi, who is known as one of the first French nationals to enter Gaza since Oct. 7, spent 15 days at the European hospital in Khan Younis. Israel has continued a brutal offensive on Gaza since an Oct. 7 Hamas attack despite a UN Security Council resolution demanding an immediate cease-fire. More than 40,800 Palestinians, mostly women and children, have since been killed and nearly 94,300 injured, according to local health authorities. An ongoing blockade of the enclave has led to severe shortages of food, clean water and medicine, leaving much of the region in ruins. Israel faces accusations of genocide for its actions in Gaza at the International Court of Justice. – Arrest of French nurse who spent 2 weeks in Gaza draws backlash | Seyma Yigit | Anadolu Agency (AA)
This pro-Israeli censorship is not unprecedented in France
Sylvie Retailleau is France’s Minister of Education. Here she is publicly calling for “sanctions” against a university professor for telling his students that a genocide was happening in Gaza and that an article in The Lancet had estimated there were already close to 200,000 deaths. The teacher also told his students that he was “ashamed” that Israeli athletes were allowed to participate under their flag when Russian athletes weren’t, denouncing the double standards. He also said that the situation didn’t start on the 7th of October, that Israel was already an apartheid state prior to this, and that in any case “absolutely nothing can justify the massacre of a civilian population”. He specifically clarified that he wasn’t looking for scapegoats and that “no-one in France was responsible”, but he invited his students to not “bury their head in the sand” and make their disapproval of the situation heard peacefully, including by boycotting some Israeli products. Sylvie Retailleau called the teacher’s statement “unacceptable” and wrote: “I have requested that appropriate sanctions be taken. The role of higher education is to build a better society. To fight against antisemitism and all forms of discrimination. To combat fake news and repugnant generalizations. To protect every student. To act against hatred and support all of its victims.” Worse yet, she wrote this by retweeting an infamous French Hasbara account – SwordOfSalomon – whose specialty is to doxx people who make statements against what’s happening in Gaza, calling them antisemites. Anyone with an ounce of intellectual honesty can obviously see that there is nothing antisemitic in what the professor says, he’s simply a teacher moved by the ongoing war crimes in Gaza, encourages his students to engage peacefully for it to stop. Everything he says is absolutely factual, the Lancet article that he refers to can be found here – Counting the dead in Gaza: difficult but essential | Rasha Khatib – Martin McKee – Salim Yusuf | The Lancet Unfortunately – it goes fast – a mere 2 hours after the Minister’s tweet, the professor’s university – The Toulouse School of Economics – announced that the professor was suspended – TSE contract teacher suspended after breaching his reserve obligation. That’s the new dystopian world we’re in, where professors who tell their students the killing of civilians should be condemned, all based on factual information from reputable sources, are accused of spreading hatred and promptly suspended… All in the name of, to quote the Minister, “building a better society”. Purely Orwellian. – The sheer Orwellian state of France right now | Arnaud Bertrand | Twitter
The message could not be clearer
Speak out against Israel’s mass slaughter of the Palestinian people and you will be punished. Promulgate Israeli lies (Hasbara) and you will be rewarded.
Vive la différence
Australian surgeon returns home from Gaza describing ‘unfathomable’ conditions | by Zena Chamas | ABC
To date, Australian surgeon Bushra Othman has not been arrested for describing the appalling conditions in Gaza.
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