An Italian appeal court has ordered the release of a Turin-based imam who had praised the October 7 Hamas pogrom in Israel, ruling that his remarks did not pose an immediate threat to public security.
Mohamed Shahin, a 46-year-old Egyptian national who has been resident in Italy for 21 years, was arrested by counter-terrorism police on November 24th, after the Interior Ministry issued an expulsion order and revoked his residence permit. Shahin has been detained in the Caltanissetta repatriation centre since November 24th, awaiting deportation.
His defence lawyers appealed the order, and the appeal court found that Shahin’s remarks did not constitute “a concrete and present danger” to public security. So the imam is now free to go, despite an existing deportation order issued against him.
The ruling comes despite Shahin’s role in an anti-Israel protest, where he made the remarks. Weeks later, a group of protesters marching in his support attacked the Turin office of Italian newspaper La Stampa on November 28th, an incident that heightened concerns among authorities about the potential for his rhetoric to fuel unrest.
Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni reacted to the court’s decision by stating: “We’re talking about a person who called the October 7th attack an act of ‘resistance,’ denying its violence. Which, where I come from, amounts to justifying, if not inciting, terrorism.”
Can someone explain to me how we can protect the safety of Italians if every initiative in this direction is systematically quashed by certain judges?
Sara Kelany, a Fratelli d’Italia MP and the party’s immigration spokesperson, said the freeing of Shahin “is yet another ruling that goes against the decisions taken by the state to protect the safety of citizens.” She added that it “effectively satisfies the demands of the Left,” which she said had mobilized in support of an imam who justified Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack by claiming that “the killing of 1,200 people and the kidnapping of 250 others was not violence, but a legitimate reaction.”
Kelany added that the decision comes “in the wake of the Sydney massacre against the Jewish community.”
The paradox is that as things stand, the nation’s security at such a delicate time will be managed by the courts and not by the competent ministry, which made a just and proper decision regarding an imam who endorses terrorism.
Deputy Prime Minister and Lega leader Matteo Salvini also condemned the decision:
This is yet another overreach by a certain ideologically driven and politicised judiciary that would like to replace politics. I say would like because, fortunately, in a few weeks, at the beginning of March, citizens will have a date with history: a referendum to vote yes to justice reform and to push some of this ideology out of the courts.
Salvini was referring to the referendum in Italy to be held next spring on the right-wing government’s judicial reform. The reform seeks to depoliticize the judiciary, which has been accused of sabotaging Meloni’s efforts to curb illegal immigration and speed up deportations.
