Former Tunisian Ambassador to UNESCO Refuses Shaking Hands With Qatari Ambassador

Former Tunisian ambassador to UNESCO, Mezri Haddad, has refused to shake hands with Qatari Ambassador Ali Zinal, on March 7th due to Qatar’s interference in Tunisian affairs Algerian news website ElKhabar has reported on March 14th.

According to Haddad, Qatar conspires against and has destroyed the Arab world and Algeria will be Qatar’s next target.

Haddad told ElKhabar that he refused to shake hands with Zinal and that he told him “You destroyed Tunisia, Egypt and Libya. You created division in Syria and you plot against Algeria. You represent an enemy of the Arabs [...] it would dishonor me to shake your hand.”

Haddad has long claimed that the Tunisian Revolution has sewn discord in the country and empowered the most extreme actors in Tunisian society.

“Behind the intoxication of freedom and the triumph of democracy, loom three deadly poisons: the temptation of fundamentalism, the sublimation of anarchism and the abandonment of sovereignty,” wrote Haddad in his book, The Hidden Side of the Tunisian Revolution: Islamism and the West, a High-risk Alliance.

Tunisia’s former ambassador to UNESCO described Ben Ali’s regime as a dictatorship that was the least bloody in the Arab world, the most economically prosperous in the African continent, although he acknowledges that it was politically one of the most mediocre during the last decade.

“What smelled like jasmine in the first days, a few months later emits a foul odor, that of tribalism and obscurantism,” said Haddad.

During the last weeks before Ben Ali’s ousting, Haddad was a frequent commentator on various French TV channels, defending Ben Ali’s regime.