The controversy continues into overtime, more than a month after the European Cup match between the Nanterre 92 Basketball club and the Israelis of Hapoel Holon. The city’s mayor Raphaël Adam (DVG) requests the dropping of charges against the two pro-Palestinian activists who will be tried next Friday for “entering a competition area of a sports venue disturbing the progress of the competition ”, as well as for “violence without incapacity”.
The elected official thus intends to “denounce any attempt to muzzle political opinions and militant action in Nanterre”. On December 18, several people entered the floor of the Maurice-Thorez sports center. They waved Palestinian flags to protest against the bombings of the Israeli army in Gaza, during this match classified as sensitive by the authorities.
After this intrusion which caused an interruption of the match for several minutes, they quickly returned to the stands where, according to images filmed by several spectators, they were attacked by supporters of the Israeli team.
At the end of this start of the scuffle which led to the intervention of the CRS present to secure the meeting, seven pro-Palestinian activists were arrested. If five of them were only sentenced to pay a fine, the other two aged 21 and 31 and of French nationality for one, and Belgian for the other, were indicted and will appear Friday before the Nanterre Criminal Court.
-“It is not the practice in Nanterre to criminalize political action, especially when it concerns a just cause such as the defense of the rights of the Palestinian people and the stopping of violence and massacres in the Strip. from Gaza, the West Bank and Lebanon, insists the elected official. Neither the City of Nanterre nor the Nanterre 92 club will be a civil party during this trial which will be held on January 31. » The club was fined 6,000 euros. “For a club like ours, this is not an insignificant sum,” confirms club president Frédéric Donnadieu.
For Raphaël Adam, these prosecutions are going all the worse as this incident could have been avoided, according to him: “Despite the importance of the security measures deployed on December 18, the State was not able to prevent the excesses, which unfortunately gave reason to the initial position of the City of Nanterre to hold this match behind closed doors. » The town hall had issued a municipal decree to this effect, contested by the Hauts-de-Seine prefecture and overturned by the courts.
