François Deroche to "Al-Estiklal": Macron hates Muslims and Rewards Sisi

The head of the "Justice and Rights With no Limits" organization in France, Dr. Francois Deroche (Franswa Derosh), warned of the danger that Paris, under President Emmanuel Macron, would turn into a "fascist dictatorship" if it passed a racist anti-Muslim law. 

Derosh, in his dialogue with "Al-Estiklak," denounced Macron's support for what he described as the worst criminal repressive regime in the region by receiving the president of Egyptian, Abdel Fattah El-Sisi, in Paris in January 2021. 

Derosh assured that the massacre of the Rabaa Al-Adawiya and al-Nahda will remain proofs to the crime of the fascist military coup in Egypt in 2013 against President Mohamed Morsi, and the fake and false dramas will not erase that because the world watched it live.

 

France's Hostility to Islam

• What is your interpretation of the recent hostile practices against Muslims in France, and does it have historical background?

Mr. Deroche: As one of the French Republic, I see that there is a kind of exaggeration in how the state faces nowadays, Muslim issues , and there is a kind of religious discrimination or what is called  Islamophobia. 

France, as everyone  knows, has a problem with everything called  religion, even the Pope regrets that secularism in the French state has unfortunately become a religion.

• As a French citizen, what do you say about the law that Macron enacts to confront what he calls separatist Islam?

Mr. Deroche: This is a law, as we have already said, that does not even respect the values ​​of the French Republic, and violates the Law of Secularism of 1905, which came to establish freedom of belief, religion, and the coexistence of religions among all citizens of the country without discrimination, and this law in my opinion would present a threat in French society.

 France, which I studied in my childhood in its schools, taught me the values ​​of coexistence and acceptance of others, and that the existence of cultural and ethnic diversity is a great wealth.

•  As a jurist, who heads the French "Justice and Rights with no limits" organization, what do you think of the draft bill to fight Islamic separatism?

Mr. Deroche: I am afraid that the Islamic separatism bill will pass, because it will make France abandon human rights principles forever, and it will become a dictatorial state.

Unfortunately, this is a fact because it is a very dangerous law that has been put only against Muslims as if they were a monster threatening the security of the country which represents a danger to society.

By the end, the fate of the Muslims of France probably will be the same as the Uyghur minority in China. 

However, we in the "Justice and Rights With no Limits " organization and all the rest of the human rights organizations in France will not stand idly by in front of this suspicious law, and we will take the necessary steps against it to highlight the inhuman and illegal practices that contradict what is stated in the French constitution.

Therefore, I am sure that we will win this battle, but if we do not succeed in France; We will resort to the European Court of Human Rights. 

 

• What is the secret behind Macron and his government standing firmly behind this racist law?

Mr. Deroche: It is clear that Macron is trying to win in the election . Unfortunately, this has become fashionable these days in France for those who want to win elections, accuse Muslims and consider them terrorists. 

But what makes me wonder, is that the hard-line right-wing "Marine Le Pen '' would not have dared to put such a suspicious law,  if she had been in power as it leads to a devided French society and a civil war in the coming years. 

• Is this law in line with French claims to protect freedoms?

Mr. Deroche: The Anti-Islamic Separatism Law exposes and violates  French claims to protect freedoms. 

When a law comes to prohibit a veiled mother from accompanying her son or daughter on a school trip, claiming that she is veiled, then it disrespects the freedom of this Muslim mother.

Offensive Caricatures

• How do you see the issue of the caricatures insulting the Prophet Muhammad - may blessings and peace be upon him - and Macron pretext  that it was a freedom of expression?
• Mr. Deroche: The answer is what was mentioned in the European Court's decision in 2018, that the caricatures were not a freedom of expression, and therefore the Charlie Hebdo newspaper (which published it) does not respect the law, and Mr. Macron’s declaration  contradicts the court European decision. 

And I totally condamn the murder of the teacher who showed the offensive pornography to children; However, I consider that freedom of expression does not represent a complete liberation without limits.

Freedom of expression has moral, social and political limits, as it is not possible to hurt others under the name of ‘’ freedom of expression’’. 

The Macron government and the French press misled the public opinion on this issue, and did not publish the shameful "pornographic" image that cannot be shown to young adolescent children who are still discovering life, which makes this image an educational, methodological and tasteful mistake before it was an assault on religions. 

The double standard policy in dealing with freedom of expression was embodied in the expulsion of the famous cartoonist Iris de Moüy in 2009 within two days of the newspaper’s publication. Because of the caricatures which were against the Jews !! Is this the freedom of expression they are talking about in France? 

• Banning the veil, restricting religious schools, and closing mosques in France .. Do you think that this has a negative reaction on the Muslim community?

Mr. Deroche: There is no final law. There are still steps of debate in the French House and Senate. 

Certainly, this law will have negative effects on French Muslim citizens; Because it affects one of their constitutional rights related to personal freedoms; Especially those related to freedom of belief, expression, which were protected by the international law before the French law.

• What is the future of the third generation of Muslims who belong to Islam and the French state at the same time ?

Mr. Deroche: There is no longer something called the second or third generation today in France, but there are now French Muslim citizens integrated into their society, including doctors, engineers, judges, lawyers, and the rest of the French society. Despite all this, there is no fear for the future of the Muslim children of France.

• Islamophobia in Europe .. Who is behind it and how can it be confronted? 

Mr. Deroche: Simply and clearly, the issue of Islamophobia in Europe is a policy adopted by some European political parties in their electoral campaigns, and we, as human rights organizations, seek to criminalize Islamophobia in France, as is the criminalization of anti-Semitism.

Of course, the extreme right in France is working hard to spread the spirit of hostility towards immigrants, black people, and French Muslims, and the ideas of the extreme right-wing parties are the real danger that European countries in general, not France alone, should pay attention to. Because he will drag her to unpleasant consequences.

Unfortunately, there is no institution recognized by the Europeans that really represents Muslims, and if it exists, it can stand against these policies through the national and the international judiciary.

The Human Rights File

• As the president of the French "Justice and Rights with no Limits", how do you see the reality of human rights in Egypt and the Arab Spring countries?

Mr. Deroche: The reality of human rights in Egypt is catastrophic. We are facing a regime that kills and starve citizens. The situation of Egypt after the military coup in 2013 against the first elected civilian president, Mohamed Morsi cannot be compared to some of the Arab Spring countries such as Tunisia. However , for the rest of the countries, especially  Syria, Yemen and Libya, we can say that external interference destroyed them.

During Macron's preparations to receive the coup leader Abdel Fattah al-Sisi in January 2021, our organization, in coordination with others, wrote a letter in which we listed most of the human rights violations of the Egyptian regime and send it to the President of the National Assembly, the secretary of foreign affairs, and all the heads of the parliamentary blocs in the General Assembly.

We also conveyed the message of the Sisi regime's violations to all the current ministers in Macron's government, as well as former ministers advocating for human rights, and through this message we wanted to expose the crimes of this brutal, oppressive dictatorial regime, by exposing the many violations that ranged from mass torture, extrajudicial killing, and forced disappearance and the poor detention conditions. 

Sisi prisons hold more than 60,000 prisoners of conscience, and more than 770 died between 2013 and 2019, the majority of them died due to deliberate medical negligence, 73 of whom died among the detained political opponents only during the year 2020.

• What was your organization’s position concerning the crime of dispersing the Rabaa al-Adawiya and al-Nahda sit-ins, and does the fake coup authorities ’drama erase the ugliness of the massacre ?

Mr. Deroche: Unfortunately, the dispersal of the Rabaa al-Adawiya and al-Nahda sit-ins will remain undisputedly the crime of the century and no one can deny it.

It is a horrible crime that the whole world watched without exception on television in live broadcast so that it cannot be denied or hidden.

• How did you deal with the execution of the death sentence against 17 of those who rejected the military coup in Kerdasa, Egypt, a few days ago?

Mr. Deroche: This is a horrible crime against the 17 innocent people of Kerdasa. So that the coup authorities in Egypt were not able to find any witness against them.

The coup security forces were behind the fabricated accusations, and “we are in this crime facing premeditated extrajudicial killing”

We issued a statement denouncing this horrible crime after the implementation of the unjust sentence on April 26, 2021, in which we also condemned the indifference of the World in this crime committed by the coup regime of General Sisi by executing 17 Egyptian citizens in cold blood during Ramadan.

In the statement, we emphasized that the military coup on 3 July 2013 established a brutal and bloody regime, thus burying the paths of hope and freedom that began after the Arab Spring and ended with the first democratic vote in Egypt with the election of Mohamed Morsi as a president.

We explained that these executions of alleged opponents of Sisi's dictatorial regime are evidence of the moral, ethical and political weakness of the Egyptian state and its elite. Western countries speak out to defend the freedom of peoples and human rights Meanwhile, they are in relation with a murderous regime ruled by Sisi and this is highly hypocritical.

Al-Sisi's judges issued 1,558 death sentences against political opponents to terrify and silence civil society since its military coup in 2013.

80 death sentences were carried out in 22 cases, including 13 cases with military rulings against civilians, in addition to suspicious judicial rulings of terrorism departments.

• What is your evaluation as a human rights defender of the work of the judiciary institution in Egypt after the July 2013 coup?

Mr. Deroche: Unfortunately, since the military coup against President Morsi, the judiciary has been employed to serve the powers of the coup, which has made the justice system in Egypt unfair, immoral, and inhuman, and reflects the essence of the brutal military regime that now exists in Egypt.