This short video is a statement of sister Aicha Msakni whose five children were taken away and husband arrested by the French authorities. This video was published on 7th Feb 2015, Alhamdulillah she now has her children back and her husband has been released. They currently have travel restrictions imposed on them.

A rough translation:-

Assalamou Alaykum.

My name is Aïsha.

I thought that you should hear my story. I wanted to give my statement because, as you may have noticed, I have trouble speaking in public – I am someone who is very timid and reserved. I wanted to give my testimony because, as you must have noticed, the French media has a tendency to mix everything up in the story; I can see that many people are confused as well.

I have been accused, my spouse and myself, of preparing to leave for jihad, while we only wanted to leave for Tunisia. They took my children for me – they made a mistake, a mistake that they don’t want to admit [to]. So now, they’re changing the story that the children were taken away due to “maltreatment”. It was said that my children were restricted from the television, that they were unhappy, that they didn’t have any toys; while I always did everything I could, I didn’t even take [unintelligible] if they needed it. So I wanted to make this video to show the location where the children lived and to say everything that can be said….

So I’m in the bedroom of my three eldest sons…you have the bed of my son Yopi at the top, who is 6 ½ years old…there that’s the place of my son Chouaïb, 5 ½ years old, and the place of my son Yunus who is almost 4 years old. So as you can see they have a completely normal children’s bedroom … it breaks my heart to get up every morning and find their beds all empty … not being able to see them every morning, it’s hard…

Now we’re in my babies’ bedroom; we have the place, the bed of my son Ilyas: he is 18 months old. And there, the little bed of my 3-month old baby Mousa … and here’s the double I push when I leave to go out … so they have a baby’s bedroom that’s completely normal.

We are now in the playroom, it’s their own place for themselves. They told me that we didn’t have any toys [for the children], well you can see that we reserved space just for them. You can see that they tore up the tapestry, but that doesn’t bother me; it’s their room, their universe, they can do what they want in this space … these are full of toys, even big boxing gloves, Thai boxing gloves. And they have books, plenty of toys, some computers, tablets for playing, consoles, chalk for writing on the blackboard … the children don’t want for anything. They always have whatever they need.

So now we are in the living room. So they said to me that my children were deprived of television; well we obviously have a TV. They are subscribed to [unintelligible] channels and animal documentaries; they’re not deprived of television, they have a TV, but it’s limited; we don’t want our children to spend all their time in front of the TV either. There, I have a cabinet reserved for their activities … I really like to do activities with my children; they have their colouring books, they have paint, I have the big containers of paint like schools do; papers, all full of papers for my children; I really like to keep them busy, to do activities with them. In fact each Ramadan the children do activities with me during all of Ramadan in order to open presents, so [lists activity names I don’t recognise here], it occupies them during all of Ramadan. Here are some of the activities they did: painting on glass - they are plates – they really liked it, it kept them occupied well. They already made dishes one year ago, [unintelligible, something to do with colour]. Last year we made candles; I gave them plenty of coloured sand, butterflies, many decorations, they amused themselves with decorating the glasses, and then the candle is inside.

So there … I don’t understand why they say I deprive my children when … when I do all that I can … they don’t want for anything … I do all the activities with them, [something unintelligible] all the time. There you can see … that’s my breast pump, which is now in the living room all the time; that’s what has taken the place of my 3-month old baby. That’s what has taken the place of my 3-month old baby. [Crying] … it’s too hard, it’s too hard to have an empty apartment.

All that I ask is that they recognize that there’s been a mistake; that they were wrong to take away my children; that justice is recognised and that my babies are allowed to return home. I have nothing [unintelligible] and I’ve always done everything for my children. I want my babies back home; that’s all I want, please.