Rima Hassan (Arabic: ريما حسان; born 28 April 1992) is a French-Palestinian jurist, human rights activist and politician born in the Palestinian refugee camp of Neirab, near Aleppo, Syria.
Rima Hassan | |
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| Born | Rima Hassan Mobarak 28 April 1992 Neirab camp, Syria |
| Nationality | Stateless (until 2010) French (since 2010) |
| Occupation(s) | jurist, lawyer |
Stateless, she arrived in France around the age of nine and settled with her family in Niort. After obtaining French nationality upon reaching adulthood, she earned a master's degree in international law from Panthéon-Sorbonne University.
Hassan then founded, in 2019, the 'Refugee Camps Observatory', an NGO dedicated to the study and protection of refugee camps worldwide. In 2023, she founded the 'Action Palestine France' collective. That same year, she joined La France Insoumise in preparation for the 2024 European parliament election.
Family and origins
Rima Hassan Mobarak was born on April 28, 1992, in the Neirab camp, near Aleppo, Syria.[1]
She is the youngest of six children. Her mother, Nabiha (1958-2021), was a teacher, while her father is a former mechanic in the Syrian Air Force named Ahmad.[2] Her father's parents, Palestinians originally from the village of Al-Birwa, were forced into exile to Syria during the creation of Israel in May 1948 during the Nakba.[3][4]
Her maternal grandmother, on the other hand, came from a prominent Syrian family, the Hananu. She married a Palestinian refugee from Salfit.[4][5] Because of her notable status and his being a Palestinian communist refugee, she chose to forsake her heritage and settle with him in the camp.[2]
Youth and studies
Due to the unhappy marriage and an abusive relationship between her parents, Hassan's mother left the camp shortly after her birth and managed to immigrate to France, where she reunited with one of her sisters.[2] She then spent eight years attempting to regain custody of her children and transfer them to France.[2]
Her mother ultimately managed to do it, and Hassan arrived in France around the age of nine. She settled in Niort, in the Deux-Sèvres region, with her mother,[6] sister and four brothers.[7] She was elected to the children's municipal council in 2003, in Niort.[8] She studied there at Ernest Pérochon Primary School.[9] During this time, her mother did not work as a teacher, her original profession, but instead worked in restaurants to support her family.[2] Hassan was targeted by hate speech during her schooling, including being called ethnic slurs like 'bougnoule' (wog) by her classmates.[2] This led to a progressive loss of her native language, Arabic.[2] She obtained a scientific baccalaureate from La Venise Verte High School in 2011.[9]
Stateless until her adulthood, she obtained French nationality in 2010.[3] As soon as she reached the age of majority, she sought to travel to Palestine via Tel Aviv, intending to "finally discover the land of her ancestors", but she was prevented from boarding at Charles de Gaulle Airport.[6]
After these events, she pursued studies in law and obtained her bachelor's degree. For this, she spent two years at the University of Évry, then one year at the University of Montpellier, until 2014.[9] She spent a year in Lebanon and completed her master's degree in 2016 at Panthéon-Sorbonne University (Paris 1).[7] She focused on the legal comparison between South Africa and Israel in a master's thesis in international law on the issue of apartheid.[10][11]
According to her, obtaining her degree from Panthéon-Sorbonne was a source of great pride for her mother because the university's reputation would have been known even in the Neirab camp.[2]
Work
Rima Hassan joined the French Office for the Protection of Refugees and Stateless Persons (OFPRA) in 2016,[7] and after 18 months, she worked at the National Court of Asylum Law[3][12] for six years until 2023.[6] In 2019, she founded the NGO 'Refugee Camps Observatory'.[7][13][2][14] The following year, Hassan participated in a roundtable organized by Emmaus for the World Refugee Day, on June 20th.[15]
In 2022, the Interministerial Delegation for Reception and Integration dedicated a portrait to her as an "Inspirational Woman".[16][17] That same year, she revisited the notion of "fraternity" from the French national motto in a podcast, along with other participants.[18]
On February 3, 2023, she spoke at the French Senate for the symposium "Israel-Palestine: State of Affairs" organized by Paris Senator Esther Benbassa, in collaboration with L'Histoire and the French Research Center in Jerusalem.[11][19] Her intervention addressed the issue of apartheid in Israeli society.[20]
Following the Hamas attack on October 7, 2023, amid the bombing of the Gaza Strip and the ground offensive launched by Israel, she terminated her contract with the National Court of Asylum Law and declined an advocacy position on migration issues offered by Amnesty International. Instead, she moved to the Palestinian refugee camp of al-Nayrab, near Aleppo, "to be close to her people" and established the Action Palestine France collective on Telegram.[6]
Until November 2023, she also advised L'Oréal on diversity and refugee integration issues.[21]
Political actions
In August 2023, she participated in the summer days organized by The Ecologists, alongside the rapper Médine or the politician Clémentine Autain.[22]
In the 2024 European elections, Rima Hassan joined the list of La France Insoumise (LFI), where she was placed seventh,[23][24] after also being approached to be on the list of The Greens but in a non-eligible position.[25][26]
She explains her political commitment to LFI's list by the "urgent need to act politically now" regarding the situation in Gaza Strip.[27]
Cyberbullying
Amid the events of 2023 and 2024, Hassan became the target of a harassment campaign by a pro-Israel group of about thirty members. Her phone number was reportedly doxxed via Telegram, leading to an onslaught of death and rape threats directed at Hassan.[28] She was also sent imagery of Palestinians being brutalised.[29]