| 25 January 2013 | 6 Comments
 
 

Abdelfattah Mourou

Abdelfattah Mourou, co-founder and vice-chairman of the ruling Ennahdha party, was aggressed by a group of “Salafists” on Wednesday, January 23, inside a mosque at the town of Jammal in the coastal governorate of Monastir.

“Trying to perform the ablutions, Mourou was punched on his shoulder by a young Salafist man… calling him Kafir (heretic). Then, a group of other Salafists started to curse at him,” said Fethi Makni, the head of Mourou’s legal team.

“Fortunately, there was no injury, and Mourou is fine now,” continued Makni.

During an interview on Ettounisiya TV yesterday, January 24, Mourou declared that his “Salafist” attacker was incited by the nature of the sermons of the mosque’s imam.

“The imam is supposed to preach to people virtue and unity instead of vices and disunity,” said Mourou.

This is not the first time that Mourou has been attacked by religious hardliners. On August 2012, he was hit on the head by a glass object during a conference on Islam and tolerance in the central town of Kairouan as he defended Youssef Seddik, an intellectual reviled by many religious conservatives.

Mourou declared during the same interview that violence in the name of religion has become a phenomenon in Tunisia and that a national dialogue should be established to address such problem.

Other intellectuals, journalists, and politicians have been subject to similar public incidents of aggression. Political Science professor Hamadi Redissi and journalist Zied Krichen were assaulted verbally and physically in January 2012 by “Salafists” in front of the Tunis courthouse. The attack occurred in the context of the trial of Nabil Karoui, the CEO of Nessma TV, for his channel’s controversial airing of the French-Iranian movie Persepolis.


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  1. pauli says:
    26 January 2013 at 09:54

    a moslem having said bismilla and in the process of wudu, attaked by a moslem to defend the faith , which says all moslems should be safe from their brothers, both in words and deeds?
    As a tourist I have ,sadly , become used to these middle class thugs being offensive in the street and shops, but I thought the mesjed would be a safe place .
    Many institutions have expressed the intention to pump money into the economy, but this can only occur in an atmosphere of respect, even for so called “KUFFAR”.
    In the mean and I do mean , MEAN time, normal poeple in tunisia have less to eat.

    Reply
  2. mark says:
    25 January 2013 at 19:23

    Simple they do it cos they can….who is going to stop them the non Salifast….seems not……the police….seems not…..the government…..definitely not….These people have learned that there are no consequences for their behavior so therefore no reason to stop

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  3. Skander says:
    25 January 2013 at 19:01

    You play with fire you get burned. These hypocrites are using religion (people’s ignorance and fear of death) to get in power, but they forget that history shows it is the radicals who always get in power when religion and state are combined.

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  4. Sonia says:
    25 January 2013 at 16:26

    I would be interested in what happens to these sub-humans who attack an elderly man in a holy place. The imams are 100% responsible for these incidents and the Ministry of Religious Affairs is responsible for appointing the imams. Yes another thing the government can’t get control of? Or a calculated strategy?

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  5. Faith says:
    25 January 2013 at 15:37

    Have any of these attackers been arrested? I always read about these types of incidents but I am left wondering what happened later. Aren’t these assaults illegal? Could Tunisia Live investigate?
    Thank you.

    Reply

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