France said Thursday it had banned four Muslim preachers from entering the country to attend an Islamic conference, saying their “calls for hatred and violence seriously damage republican principles”.
France also “regrets“ that Swiss intellectual Tariq Ramadan has been invited to the meeting of the Union of Islamic Organizations in France (UOIF), a statement from Foreign Minister Alain Juppe and Interior Minister Claude Gueant said.
Akrima Sabri, Ayed Bin Abdallah al-Qarni, Safwat al-Hijazi and Abdallah Basfar are banned from entering France, while Qatari preacher Yusuf al-Qaradawi and Mahmud al-Masri “decided not to come”, it said. [Al Arabiya News] Read more
