French MEP Rima Hassan appears at Paris criminal court on charges of glorifying terrorism online. Abdul Saboor/Reuters
‘The trial of the century for freedom of expression.’
For the last three years, Rima Hassan has watched in horror as thousands of people have been killed in her family’s homeland. The French jurist and La France Insoumise (LFI) MEP, who was born stateless in a Palestinian refugee camp in Syria, is one of France’s most outspoken critics of both Israel’s genocide in Gaza and the complicity of Europe’s governments.
Now, she could be sent to prison over a post on social media.
In March, Hassan posted a quotation on X/Twitter attributed to Kōzō Okamoto, a member of the Japanese Red Army who took part in a 1972 attack on an Israeli airport in which 26 people were killed.
“I gave my youth to the Palestinian cause,” Okamoto’s quotation read. “As long as there is oppression, resistance will not only be a right, but a duty.”
Far-right National Rally politician Matthias Renault, interior minister Laurent Nuñez and two French pro-Israel lobby groups reported Hassan to prosecutors for apologie du terrorisme (the glorification of terrorism) – a criminal offence. Hassan denied the charges and said her main goal had been to share a quotation about the “philosophy of resistance”, and that she couldn’t be accused of glorifying terrorism for doing so.
Hassan’s trial began on 19 October. If found guilty, she could be sentenced to up to seven years in prison and fined €100,000 under French law. Her situation, she said, is the latest in a series of legal and political battles in France over solidarity with Palestine.
“People who stand in solidarity with Palestine are labelled as terrorists because it [this label] is the only instrument that allows them to silence concrete opposition and activism,” Hassan told Novara Media ahead of her trial.
This isn’t the first time the French state has brought the full force of its institutional machinery against Hassan. 22 legal proceedings have been initiated against her in the last two years in connection with her political views (six have been closed by prosecutors without questioning, 13 after questioning and three remain open). In September, a separate trial in relation to two social media posts from 2025 was adjourned.
Keir Starmer objects to criticism of the IDF. He asks how could anyone object to them starving people to death, forced marches like the Nazis did, bombing Gaza’s hospitals and universities, mass-murdering journalists, healthworkers and starving people queuing for food, killing and raping prisoners and murdering children. He calls for people to stop obstructing his genocide for Israel. New Labour UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham continues Labour party policy of active support and complicity in Israel’s genocide.
Crew of activists making symbolic attempt to deliver aid expected to be held in port until deportation hearings
A boat seized by Israel’s military as it tried to break the blockade on Gaza was towed into an Israeli port after sunset on Monday, with the crew of activists including Greta Thunberg expected to be held there in advance of deportation hearings.
The Madleen was attempting to bring a symbolic shipment of aid to Gaza, which faces a looming famine after more than 11 weeks of total siege and ongoing severe restrictions on food entering the territory.
Thunberg and the other 11 members of the Madleen crew, including the French MEP Rima Hassan and the Al Jazeera journalist Omar Faiad, have been out of contact since Israeli forces took control of the boat in the early hours of Monday morning.
The legal adviser to the Israeli navy told the rights group Adalah, which is representing the detainees: “To the best of our knowledge, none of them are injured or currently require medical treatment.”
Swedish climate campaigner Greta Thunberg speaks surrounded by other participants in the latest Freedom Flotilla Coalition effort to deliver shipborne aid to Gaza, during a June 1, 2025 press conference in Catania, Italy. (Photo: Fabrizio Villa/Getty Images)
“No matter how dangerous this mission is, it’s nowhere near as dangerous as the silence of the entire world in the face of the live-streamed genocide,” said climate activist Greta Thunberg, who is aboard the Madleen.
A dozen Palestine defenders including climate campaigner Greta Thunberg and a French lawmaker set sail from Sicily on Sunday aboard a boat carrying humanitarian aid for the people of Gaza, many of whom are starving amid Israel’s ongoing U.S.-backed genocidal assault and siege and decadeslong naval blockade of the coastal enclave.
The Freedom Flotilla Coalition (FFC) said it launched the sailboat Madleen—named after Gaza’s first and only known fisherwoman—from Catania, Italy at 4:00 pm local time Sunday “in direct defiance of Israel’s illegal and genocidal blockade.”
“Madleen symbolizes the unyielding spirit of Palestinian resilience and the growing global resistance to Israel’s use of collective punishment and deliberate starvation policies,” FFC said in a statement Sunday. “The ship is carrying urgently needed supplies for the people of Gaza, including baby formula, flour, rice, diapers, women’s sanitary products, water desalination kits, medical supplies, crutches, and children’s prosthetics.”
The international volunteers aboard Madleen include Thunberg, French Member of European Parliament Rima Hassan, German refugee advocate and FFC steering committee member Yasemin Acar, Brazilian FFC steering committee member Thiago Ávila, Al Jazeera reporter Omar Fayad, French doctor Baptiste Andre, French journalist Yanis M’Hamdi, Turkish engineer Şuayb Ordu, and crew members Mark Van Rennes, Reva Seifert Viard, Pascal Maurieras, and Sergio Toribio.
“I am aboard Madleen because silence is not neutrality—it is complicity,” said Hassan, who is banned from entering Israel due to her outspoken support for Palestinian rights. “The Palestinian people in Gaza are being starved and slaughtered, and the world watches. This ship is not just carrying aid, it is carrying a demand: End the blockade. End the genocide.”
Thunberg said that “we are seeing a systematic starvation of 2 million people. The world cannot be silent bystanders, Every single one of us has a moral obligation to do everything we can to fight for a free Palestine.”
The Madleen‘s launch came a month after the Conscience, another FCC aid vessel traveling in international waters off Malta, was attacked twice, presumably by Israeli forces. No one was harmed in what FFC said was a drone strike on the ship. However, the activists were forced to abort their humanitarian mission. Israel has not commented on the incident.
Madleen also set sail nearly 15 years to the day after Israeli forces raided a Gaza Freedom Flotilla convoy carrying humanitarian aid to the besieged people of Gaza. The attack—which also came in international waters—left nine people including Turkish-American teenager Furkan Doğan dead.
FFC said Sunday that the “unarmed and nonviolent” mission “poses no threat” and “sails in full accordance with international law. Any attack or interference will be a deliberate, unlawful assault on civilians.”
Those aboard the Madleen said they were aware of the dangers they faced. Israel has killed numerous Western activists and journalists who document its human rights violations over the years, and just last month Israeli troops opened fire on a group of international diplomats visiting the illegally occupied West Bank two days after three involved countries issued an ultimatum to stop annihilating Gaza.
“We are doing this because, no matter what odds we are against, we have to keep trying,” a tearful Thunberg said during a Sunday press conference. “Because the moment we stop trying is when we lose our humanity.”
“And no matter how dangerous this mission is, it’s nowhere near as dangerous as the silence of the entire world in the face of the live-streamed genocide,” she added.
Activist Greta Thunberg says silence is more dangerous than sailing to Gaza, as she boarded a vessel that will try to break the Israeli blockade of Gaza.
The Gaza Freedom Flotilla had to abandon its last attempt on May 2 when it was bombed. pic.twitter.com/ieecZ8ps0E
Some Israelis and their supporters took to social media to wish harm upon the activists. In the United States, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) alluded to past Israeli attacks on Gaza aid flotillas in a social media post saying, “Hope Greta and her friends can swim!”
Israel strongly refutes allegations that it is committing genocide in Gaza. South Africa has filed, and dozens of nations support, a genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice in The Hague.
The International Criminal Court, also located in the Dutch city, has issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant, his former defense minister, for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity, including extermination and starvation as a weapon of war, in Gaza.
Officials in Gaza say that more than 192,000 Palestinians have been killed or injured since Israel launched its assault and siege following the Hamas-led attack of October 7, 2023, a figure that includes at least 14,000 people who are missing and presumed dead and buried beneath rubble and hundreds of mostly children who have died from acute malnutrition and lack of medical care.
Around 2 million Gazans have also been forcibly displaced, often multiple times, amid Israel’s campaign to starve, conquer, indefinitely occupy, ethnically cleanse, and possibly recolonize the coastal strip.
Each side accuses the other of thwarting cease-fire efforts. On Saturday, U.S. Special Envoy Steve Witkoff rejected what he called Hamas’ “totally unacceptable” proposal for a truce in which 10 living and 18 dead Israeli hostages would be exchanged for an unspecified number of Palestinian prisoners held by Israel.
Former Israeli peace negotiator Daniel Levy toldDemocracy Now! on Monday that a cease-fire proposal mediated by Witkoff is “a bad deal for the Palestinians that will allow Israel to continue its ethnic cleansing of Gaza” and “walks back the commitment for a permanent cease-fire, Israeli withdrawal, and allowing in of humanitarian aid.”
