In Tunisia, civil society figures condemn the words of an Islamist deputy who justified the assassination in France of history professor Samuel Paty. Coming from academia, research, or the art world, about forty of them have signed an unequivocal petition to condemn dumb remarks and demand justice.
The signatories, primarily from progressive and modernist academia, find it scandalous that a member of the nation can afford to justify death by beheading of French teacher, reports our correspondent in Tunis, Michel Picard.
MP Rached Khiari – independent but elected under the banner of the Islamist movement Karama, a member of the ruling coalition – wrote on Facebook: “Any attack on the Prophet Muhammad is the greatest crime. All those who commit it (…) must take responsibility for its consequences ”. The forty intellectual authors of the petition on Change.org therefore call for the waiver of the people’s parliamentary immunity so that it can be tried.
New history of the revolution
Given that the Tunisian revolution opened up a new history story banning systems of violence and dictatorship, Tunisian intellectuals emphasize that the 2014 Constitution opens up an irrevocable space of freedom. Free worship, faith and conscience for which the state is the sole guarantor.
With the exception of condemnations from political actors and civil society of this verbal terror represented in the Assembly, the signatories are offended by the silence in most of the political world. At a time when publications calling for respect for the Prophet are multiplying on Tunisian social networks, this petition clearly and firmly reminds us that “the justification of terrorism is one of the deepest forms of terrorism”.
The ball is now in the court of the Tunisian state, whose leaders have so far not responded to the deputy’s words.
