Arab Spring.
Tunisian people demonstrate outside the Constituent Assembly in Tunis on December 1. Thousands of Islamist supporters descended on central Tunis Saturday to confront liberal demonstrators rallying against extremism as lawmakers draft a new constitution for Tunisia. (AFP /Fethi Belaid)
Islamists chucked stones at liberal demonstrators protesting against extremism in Tunisia.
AFP reported:
Police fired tear gas as thousands of Islamist supporters swooped on central Tunis Saturday to confront liberal demonstrators rallying against extremism as lawmakers draft a new constitution for Tunisia.
“The Islamists attacked us and threw stones, the police fired tear gas,” Ines Ben Othman, a representative of the liberal demonstrators told AFP.
“The sit-in continues, we will remain. But the aggressors are provoking us and are waiting on all street corners,” she added.
Interior ministry spokesman Hichem Meddeb confirmed that Islamists had “thrown stones and the police dispersed them. Calm has returned.”
Separated by barriers and police, the two sides shouted insults at each other outside the Bardo Palace where the constitution is being drawn up after a vote that saw the moderate Islamist Ennahda party win most seats on the drafting body.
The Islamists waved Ennahda flags but also the black banners of the hardline Salafist Hizb Tahrir, which has not been legalised in the north African country.
