The lawmaker is being probed over a social media post she published last week.
PARIS — French MEP Rima Hassan from the hard-left France Unbowed party was put under police custody in Paris on Thursday, her office told POLITICO.
Hassan is being questioned and temporarily held as part of an investigation into “apology for terrorism” for a social media post she wrote last week expressing solidarity with Japanese terrorist Kōzō Okamoto, according to reports first published by Le Parisien.
Okamoto was convicted of a terrorist attack that killed 26 people at Ben Gurion International Airport in 1972.
In a text message to POLITICO, Hassan’s team argued that the temporary custody was a breach of the lawmaker’s immunity as an MEP.
A spokesperson for the European Parliament declined to comment “on ongoing proceedings” but confirmed that “the Parliament is in contact with the national authorities, the member and her political group.”
French far-right lawmaker Matthias Renault, who alerted French prosecutors to Hassan’s post last week, was quick to celebrate.
“Finally, the beginning of the end of impunity for the France Unbowed lawmaker!” Renault wrote in a social media post on Thursday.
Hassan, who was born stateless in a Palestinian refugee camp in Syria, is one of France’s most visible pro-Palestinian activists and has repeatedly courted controversy when it comes to her stance on Israel.
Her continued description of Hamas’ armed resistance against Israel as “legitimate from the perspective of international law” has drawn fury from much of France’s political establishment, though she says the terror group’s Oct. 7, 2023 attack was “morally unacceptable.”
This story has been updated.