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France Expels Palestinian Activist

Palestinian activist Mariam Abu Daqqa, 72, has been expelled by France Christophe SIMON - AFP
Palestinian activist Mariam Abu Daqqa, 72, has been expelled by France Christophe SIMON - AFP
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France Expels Palestinian Activist

Palestinian activist Mariam Abu Daqqa, 72, has been expelled by France Christophe SIMON - AFP
Palestinian activist Mariam Abu Daqqa, 72, has been expelled by France Christophe SIMON - AFP

France on Friday expelled a Palestinian activist to Egypt after a protracted court battle over her presence, police said.

Mariam Abu Daqqa, 72, is a leading member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) which is considered a "terrorist" organization by the European Union.

Abu Daqqa was detained by police on Wednesday night after the State Council, France's highest administrative court, overturned a lower court ruling that had suspended an interior ministry expulsion order.

Abu Daqqa had a 50 day visa to visit France to take part in conferences on the Middle East conflict. The ministry said that her presence was a risk after the deadly October 7 Hamas attacks against Israel.

She took part in two conferences that had been banned while in France.

Reached by phone at Paris Charles de Gaulle airport as she awaited a flight to Cairo, Abu Daqqa slammed her expulsion as "an attack against the right of Palestine to have a state, an identity, an existence".

"The process that I have undergone is not worthy of a democratic government," she said.

Her lawyers, Elsa Marcel and Marie David, told AFP they would launch further appeals and even take the case to the European Court of Human rights.

France, which has large Jewish and Muslim populations, has seen a spike in tensions amid the war between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

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Azerbaijan Proposes Document on Principles of Peace before Full Deal with Armenia

FILE PHOTO: Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev delivers a speech at the 10th Southern Gas Corridor Advisory Council Ministerial Meeting and the 2nd Green Energy Advisory Council Ministerial Meeting in Baku, Azerbaijan, March 1, 2024. REUTERS/Aziz Karimov/File Photo
FILE PHOTO: Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev delivers a speech at the 10th Southern Gas Corridor Advisory Council Ministerial Meeting and the 2nd Green Energy Advisory Council Ministerial Meeting in Baku, Azerbaijan, March 1, 2024. REUTERS/Aziz Karimov/File Photo
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Azerbaijan Proposes Document on Principles of Peace before Full Deal with Armenia

FILE PHOTO: Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev delivers a speech at the 10th Southern Gas Corridor Advisory Council Ministerial Meeting and the 2nd Green Energy Advisory Council Ministerial Meeting in Baku, Azerbaijan, March 1, 2024. REUTERS/Aziz Karimov/File Photo
FILE PHOTO: Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev delivers a speech at the 10th Southern Gas Corridor Advisory Council Ministerial Meeting and the 2nd Green Energy Advisory Council Ministerial Meeting in Baku, Azerbaijan, March 1, 2024. REUTERS/Aziz Karimov/File Photo

Azerbaijan is proposing to sign a document with Armenia on the basic principles of a future peace treaty as an interim measure as they wrangle over a broader deal, a senior Azerbaijani official said on Sunday.
Both Armenia and Azerbaijan have repeatedly said they want to sign a peace treaty to end the conflict over the former breakaway Azerbaijani region of Nagorno-Karabakh, reported Reuters.
Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev said on Saturday a text of a treaty was 80%-90% ready but repeated it was impossible to sign it before Armenia amended its constitution to remove an indirect reference to Karabakh independence, which Armenia has rejected.
Karabakh's ethnic Armenian inhabitants enjoyed de facto independence from Azerbaijan for more than three decades until September 2023, when a lightning Azerbaijani offensive retook the territory and prompted around 100,000 Armenians to flee.
Both countries have in recent months sought to make progress on the peace treaty, including the demarcation of borders, with Armenia agreeing to hand over to Azerbaijan four contested border villages.
A document on the basic principles could be considered as a temporary measure and form the basis of the bilateral ties and ensure neighborly relations between the two countries, Hikmet Hajiyev, foreign policy adviser to the president, told Reuters.
It can be signed until Azerbaijan holds COP29 climate summit in November, Hajiyev added.
Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said in June that a peace treaty with Azerbaijan was close to completion but that his country would not accept its demands that it change its constitution.
After he made those comments, clashes broke out between police and demonstrators, the latest in a series of protests denouncing his policies, including the handing back of ruined villages to Azerbaijan, and demanding his resignation.
On July 5, Constitution Day in Armenia, Pashinyan said the country needed a new constitution "which the people will consider to be what they created, what they accepted, what is written in it is their idea of the state they created and the relations between people and citizens in that state".