Assassins again strike critic of Tunisia Islamists

Google – AFP, Hamida Ben Salah (AFP), 25 July 2013 

People mourn outside the hospital in Ariana, outside Tunis after the

killing of Mohamed Brahmi on July 25, 2013 (AFP, Fethi Belaid)

TUNIS — A leading critic of Tunisia's ruling Islamists, MP Mohamed Brahmi, was shot dead outside his home Thursday in the second such assassination this year, with fingers again pointed at the authorities.

The murder by unknown gunmen sparked angry street protests in central Tunis and the top opposition figure's birthplace of Sidi Bouzid where he served as MP, AFP correspondents said, as well as a call for a general strike on Friday.

"Mohamed Brahmi, general coordinator of the Popular Movement and member of the National Constituent Assembly, was shot dead outside his home in Ariana," near Tunis, Watanya state television and the official TAP news agency reported.

"He was riddled with bullets in front of his wife and children," Mohsen Nabti, a fellow member of the small leftist movement, said in a tearful account aired on Tunisian radio.

A photo taken October 19, 2012 shows Tunisian

 opposition figure Mohamed Brahmi in Tunis

(AFP, Fethi Belaid)

The interior ministry, cited by TAP, said that Brahmi, a 58-year-old MP and vocal critic of Tunisia's ruling Islamists, was assassinated as he left home.

Watanya said Brahmi was struck by a hail of 11 bullets fired from point-blank range.

The February 6 assassination of Chokri Belaid, another opposition figure, in front of his home sparked a political crisis in Tunisia and charges of government connivance.

The family of Brahmi, who had five children, swiftly charged that Ennahda was behind both murders.

"I accuse Ennahda. It was them who killed him," the MP's sister Chhiba Brahmi told AFP at the family home in Sidi Bouzid, without providing any evidence.

"Our family had the feeling that Mohamed would suffer the same fate as Chokri Belaid," whose family also blamed the authorities, she said.

Ennahda chief Rached Ghannouchi in a statement to AFP rejected the charge, calling Brahmi's killing "a catastrophe for Tunisia".

"Those behind this crime want to lead the country towards civil war and to disrupt the democratic transition," he said.

UN human rights chief Navi Pillay demanded an investigation into the killing.

"I call upon the authorities to immediately launch a prompt and transparent investigation to ensure that the people who carried out this crime are held accountable," Pillay said in a statement in Geneva.

"The Tunisian authorities must take very serious measures to investigate these assassinations, identify the culprits and bring them to justice," she said.

Rights group Amnesty International echoed her, calling for "a truly independent and impartial investigation into the killing".

Brahmi, a man with a bushy moustache and weather-beaten complexion, was elected MP for Sidi Bouzid in October 2011, birthplace of the revolution earlier that year that toppled president Zine El Abidine Ben Ali.

On July 7, he resigned as general secretary of the Popular Movement, which he founded, protesting that it had been infiltrated by Islamists.

"Tunisia is free, Brotherhood out!" angry demonstrators shouted in Tunis on Thursday, referring to the Muslim Brotherhood-linked Ennahda which heads the country's ruling coalition.

"Ghannouchi murderer!" they chanted.

"This is a plot against the country, and the government must be held responsible for its lack of vigilance," said protester Fethi Mouelhi.

-- 'Down with the Brothers' --

In Sidi Bouzid, crowds chanted "Down with the Brothers, down with the people's torturers!"

Thousands also took to the streets of nearby Menzel Bouzaine, where Ennahda party offices were set ablaze.

Belkaeis Brahimi, the daughter of Tunisian

 opposition politician Mohamed Brahmi, on

July 25, 2013 in Ariana (AFP, Fethi Belaid)

French President Francois Hollande, whose country was the pre-independence colonial power in Tunisia, strongly condemned Brahmi's killing and called on the country to unite behind its post-revolutionary democratic transition.

He urged "all political and social forces in Tunisia to demonstrate more than ever the spirit of responsibility needed to preserve national unity and to guarantee the continuation of the democratic transition".

France's leader called for "light to be shed as quickly as possible" on both the murder of Brahmi and that of Belaid.

On Wednesday, a minister and senior adviser to the prime minister said six people believed to have orchestrated Belaid's killing have been identified.

Noureddin B'Hiri said after a cabinet meeting the details would be revealed "soon" by Interior Minister Lotfi Ben Jeddou.

The General Union of Tunisian Labour (UGTT) called for a general strike across Tunisia on Friday in protest at "terrorism, violence and murders".

The union, which says it has half a million members, last called a two-hour general strike on January 14, 2011, the day of Ben Ali's fall.