| Five injured as Salafists attack festival in Tunisia |
TUNIS Islamists armed with swords and sticks attacked a cultural festival in northern Tunisia late on Thursday, with five people wounded in the clash, witnesses and officials said.
It was the third time in just three days that Tunisia’s emboldened Salafists have disrupted cultural events, condemning some of them for violating Muslim sensitivities during the Holy Month of Ramadan and fuelling fears of a rising Islamist tide.
At the music and theatre festival in Bizerte, “around 200 people belonging to the Salafist movement used violence to block a protest organised by various groups to mark Jerusalem Day, denouncing the presence of certain Arab guests,” the interior ministry said.
The ministry said it had dispersed the assailants with tear gas and arrested four of them, adding that five people were wounded.
Festival organisers Khaled Boujemma and Slahedine Masri, speaking on private radio station Mosaique FM, said the Salafists were armed with swords and sticks. Human rights activist, Bechir Ben Cherifa, said the police waited an hour before intervening.
Witnesses said the hardliners were angered by the presence at the protest of Lebanese militant Samir Kantar, who spent nearly three decades in jail in Israel before being freed in 2008 in a prisoner swap with Hezbollah.
Agence France-Presse
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