Islamists attack Tunisian TV station for showing film 'hostile to their beliefs'
Associated Press Oct 10, 2011
About 50 Islamist demonstrators were arrested yesterday for trying to attack the offices of a TV channel that had shown a controversial movie.The film, Persepolis, is based on Marjane Satrapi's graphic novels about growing up during and after Iran's 1979 Islamic revolution.
The attackers consider it hostile to their religious convictions, said Nabil Karoui, head of the Nessma private TV channel. The film, shown on Friday, won the jury prize at the 2007 Cannes Film Festival.
The assault is the latest in a rise in attacks against perceived symbols of secularism by hard-core Muslims in Tunisia ahead of this month's election.
Once suppressed by the former regime, conservative Muslims are increasingly making themselves heard in the country's politics.
A spokesman for the interior ministry, Hichem Meddeb, said police blocked the attackers before they could reach the offices of Nessma, in the centre of Tunis, and arrested about 50 of them.
Mr Meddeb said there were also injuries, without specifying how many, and emphasised "authorities' determination to oppose troublemakers". "These extremists want to impose a new dictatorship," said Mr Karoui. "We are a channel for liberty, modernism and democracy. We will not back down and will continue to follow our independent editorial line."
Tunisians are set to hold landmark elections for a constitutional assembly in just two weeks after overthrowing their long-serving dictator in January. The ensuing nine months have been filled with demonstrations as well as the rise of a new ultraconservative group of Muslims that had kept a low profile under the largely secular regime of the former president, Zine El Abidine Ben Ali.
Salafists, as the conservatives are known, attacked a cinema showing a film they deemed insulting to Islam in June and just last week a university dean said his campus was also attacked.
Associated Press Oct 10, 2011
About 50 Islamist demonstrators were arrested yesterday for trying to attack the offices of a TV channel that had shown a controversial movie.The film, Persepolis, is based on Marjane Satrapi's graphic novels about growing up during and after Iran's 1979 Islamic revolution.
The attackers consider it hostile to their religious convictions, said Nabil Karoui, head of the Nessma private TV channel. The film, shown on Friday, won the jury prize at the 2007 Cannes Film Festival.
The assault is the latest in a rise in attacks against perceived symbols of secularism by hard-core Muslims in Tunisia ahead of this month's election.
Once suppressed by the former regime, conservative Muslims are increasingly making themselves heard in the country's politics.
A spokesman for the interior ministry, Hichem Meddeb, said police blocked the attackers before they could reach the offices of Nessma, in the centre of Tunis, and arrested about 50 of them.
Mr Meddeb said there were also injuries, without specifying how many, and emphasised "authorities' determination to oppose troublemakers". "These extremists want to impose a new dictatorship," said Mr Karoui. "We are a channel for liberty, modernism and democracy. We will not back down and will continue to follow our independent editorial line."
Tunisians are set to hold landmark elections for a constitutional assembly in just two weeks after overthrowing their long-serving dictator in January. The ensuing nine months have been filled with demonstrations as well as the rise of a new ultraconservative group of Muslims that had kept a low profile under the largely secular regime of the former president, Zine El Abidine Ben Ali.
Salafists, as the conservatives are known, attacked a cinema showing a film they deemed insulting to Islam in June and just last week a university dean said his campus was also attacked.
No comments:
Post a Comment