People demonstrate in front of the private Nessma TV station headquarters in Tunis Tunis – Nabil Zaghdoud Ten thousand Islamists participated in three different demonstrations in the Tunisian capital after Friday prayers. The protesters were shouting against Nessma TV, a private television station , for its broadcast of the Iranian movie “Persepolis”, which included an embodied snapshot of the divine, and another one calling for the establishment of the Islamic Caliphate. The Tunisian police fired tear gas to scatter them, causing many cases of suffocation, and many injuries as a result of the police use of batons. The protesters responded by throwing stones at security forces.
Protests began in the Fateh mosque, one of the largest mosques in the capital, and were joined by large numbers, of students and pupils of secondary schools, in addition to ordinary citizens. When the demonstrations reached Bab El Sweka, thousands of participants succeeded in breaking the security forces lines, they approached Casbah, the caretaker of the Prime Minister’s office.
The demonstrators, mainly conservative Muslim Salafits were chanting “Allahu Akbar- God is Greatest” and Kaybar Kaybar oh Jews, Mohamed’s soldiers will return” and “the people want an Islamic state” or “ the people is Muslim and will never give up” in addition to “Sepsi you are a coward… God can’t be insulted.”They also waved black flags inscribed with the two testimonies and the imposition of the Islamic state.
“Since the Tunisian revolution, many parties are mocking the prophet Mohammad and his followers and our mother Aisha” said Sheikh Saif Ebin Hussein to Arabs Today, he continued “the climax was reached through the cartoon movie Persepolis. What happened was not a reaction, but a process of accumulations.”
He added “the young Salafists jihadist are always in the forefront, to protect the religion and defend its values.”
The Salafist movement is newly established in Tunisia, it dates back to the late eighties under the name "the Tunisian Islamic Front," the Tunisian authorities arrested most of its leaders and members. Mohammad Ali Mehrass is one of its prominent group leaders; he is the Executive Director of the TV station “Islam Channel”.
Nabil Karoui, the Tunisian businessman and owner of Nesma TV, in which the Italian Prime Minister Berlusconi owns 25 per cent of its share, apologized on Tuesday for broadcasting the film, saying “the broadcast of the film was a mistake, any inconvenience was unintentional.”
The Tunisian state prosecutor announced Oct. 11 that Nessma TV would be investigated on charges of “defaming” Islam after receiving complaints, according to a news release by Human Rights Watch. The group has called on Tunisia's interim government to drop the investigation.