Tunisian police yesterday broke up a mob of angry Salafists intent on attacking a TV network that aired a film on the Iranian revolution, raising fears of unrest with historic polls only two weeks away.
The crowd targeted Nessma TV for airing Persepolis – an award-winning animation film they say is offensive to Islam – in the latest attack by conservative Muslims against signs of secularism in post-revolution Tunisia.
“There was a first attempt to attack our headquarters by a group of around 200 Salafists, who were dispersed by police before reaching our offices,” said Nebil Karoui, the head of the private channel.
He had earlier said that the mob had attacked his offices and tried to torch it but he then clarified that he only feared they would do so.
The Interior Ministry’s spokesman, Hichem Meddeb, confirmed the incident and said that up to around 100 people had been rounded up.
“Some 200 Salafists who were later joined by another hundred people headed towards Nessma to attack the station. Security forces stepped in and broke up the posse,” he said.
An AFP photographer said a second group of protesters arrived after the first one was dispersed to chant slogans against Nessma.
“After we aired Persepolis on Friday, there were messages posted on Facebook calling for Nessma to be torched and our journalists to be killed,” Mr Karoui said.
“Persepolis” is an internationally-acclaimed French-Iranian animation feature based on Marjane Satrapi’s autobiographical and eponymous graphic novel.
It describes the last days of the US-backed shah’s regime and the subsequent 1979 revolution led by Ayatollah Khomeini through the eyes of a young girl.
The airing of the film in the local dialect was a first in Tunisia.
“We are used to threats but what is alarming is that this time they put words into action,” Mr Karoui said.
“Nessma is the progressist channel in the Maghreb and we will not be deterred. We will continue to programme whatever we choose. We did not kick one dictatorship out to bring in another,” he said.
Salafists – whose Tahrir party has not been legalised – are one of the most conservative and radical currents in political Islam.
Two hundred protesters on Saturday stormed a university campus in the city of Sousse, south of Tunis, after a female student was denied a place because she was wearing a full face veil, which is banned in Tunisian universities.
Many observers have voiced fears that the Arab Spring – which started in Tunisia – would herald the rise of Islamist hardliners across the region.
But the country’s leading Islamist political party, Ennahda, condemned the attack, calling it an “isolated incident” that should not provoke concern about growing radical influence.
“We can only condemn this type of incident,” Samir Dilou of Ennahda’s political bureau said.