On Thursday, the Spanish judiciary announced that it had approved the deportation of Moroccan Mohamed Saeed El-Badawi, accused of being “one of the main references to the most hardline Salafism” in Spain.
The 40-year-old Moroccan, who was arrested on Tuesday in Catalonia, in the northeast of the country, “was transferred to Madrid for deportation on Thursday, according to what the Supreme Court announced in a decision Wednesday and published on Thursday, rejecting the defendant’s appeal.”
The court said it agreed to deport him because of his “participation in activities that threaten national security” and “public order”.
The Spanish police consider Mohamed Said El-Badawi one of the main representatives of the most radical Salafism in Spain, which he champions, and since his arrival there, he has had an impact that has led to the rise of extremism in the Tarragona region of Catalonia.
It also accuses him of using the disadvantage of unaccompanied minors, most of whom are of Moroccan origin, to indoctrinate them with the strictest principles of Salafism by spreading extremist pro-jihadist ideas, according to the court.
Mohamed Saeed Elbadawi is a public figure in his field and is President of the Association for Defense of the Rights of the Muslim Community (ADIDCOM), headquartered in the city of Reus, and positions himself as a public figure and opponent of racism activists.
Elbadawi settled in Catalonia nearly 30 years ago and has officially denied the accusations since he was first notified of deportation in August.
The activist receives public support from the largest Catalan independence parties, as well as from the Catalan branch of the left-wing Podemos party, a member of the Spanish government led by socialist Pedro Sanchez.
In a joint statement, the parties accused the police of “deporting him, charging him with religious extremism and radical fundamentalism without evidence” and staged demonstrations on Wednesday in Madrid and Barcelona to denounce his deportation.
The Supreme Court also announced on Thursday that it had given its green light to the expulsion of another Moroccan, Amrush Azbir, in charge of the Al Furqan Mosque in Vilanova y la Geltrú in Catalonia, and he was arrested on Tuesday in the same charges against El Badawi.
Source: AFP.