‘No blasphemy clause in new Tunisia constitution’
13 Oct 2012 7:31 AM IST
A key proposal by Tunisia’s ruling Islamist party to outlaw blasphemy in the new constitution, which stoked fears of creeping Islamization, is to be dropped from the final text, Assembly speaker Mustapha Ben Jaafar said.
The agreement to drop the clause follows negotiations between the three parties in the ruling coalition and must still be approved by the committees drafting the constitution, which Jaafar said would be debated by parliament next month.
It comes after President Moncef Marzouki warned that radical Islamist militants pose a “great danger” to the Maghreb region, and following a wave of violent attacks – blamed on Salafists – on targets ranging from works of art to the US Embassy.
‘There will certainly be no criminalization,’ Jaafar, the 72-year-old speaker of the National Constituent Assembly, said in an exclusive interview.
‘That is not because we have agreed to [allow] attacks on the sacred, but because the sacred is something very, very difficult to define. Its boundaries are blurred and one could interpret it in one way or another, in an exaggerated way,’ he added.
The plan to criminalise attacks on religious values sparked an outcry when it was first announced by the Islamists in July, with the media and civil society groups warning that it would result in new restrictions on freedom of expression.
Jaafar argued that freedom of expression should be guaranteed, as a key achievement of the mass uprising that ousted former president Zine El Abidine Ben Ali last year.
‘There is a fundamental achievement of the revolution that should never be called into question, and that no one should be able to challenge, which is the freedom of expression and of the press.’ Government critics have also warned of creeping Islamisation in the North African country since Ben Ali’s regime was swept away.
The agreement to drop the clause follows negotiations between the three parties in the ruling coalition and must still be approved by the committees drafting the constitution, which Jaafar said would be debated by parliament next month.
It comes after President Moncef Marzouki warned that radical Islamist militants pose a “great danger” to the Maghreb region, and following a wave of violent attacks – blamed on Salafists – on targets ranging from works of art to the US Embassy.
‘There will certainly be no criminalization,’ Jaafar, the 72-year-old speaker of the National Constituent Assembly, said in an exclusive interview.
‘That is not because we have agreed to [allow] attacks on the sacred, but because the sacred is something very, very difficult to define. Its boundaries are blurred and one could interpret it in one way or another, in an exaggerated way,’ he added.
The plan to criminalise attacks on religious values sparked an outcry when it was first announced by the Islamists in July, with the media and civil society groups warning that it would result in new restrictions on freedom of expression.
Jaafar argued that freedom of expression should be guaranteed, as a key achievement of the mass uprising that ousted former president Zine El Abidine Ben Ali last year.
‘There is a fundamental achievement of the revolution that should never be called into question, and that no one should be able to challenge, which is the freedom of expression and of the press.’ Government critics have also warned of creeping Islamisation in the North African country since Ben Ali’s regime was swept away.
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