2023-05-12 23:48:29
Kais Saied refutes all state anti-Semitism after Djerba attack
Tunisia’s president has refuted any allegations of state anti-Semitism in the country.
Kais Saied (centre) with Tunisian Ambassador to Syria Mohamed Mhadhbi (right) and Foreign Minister Nabil Ammar.
AFP
President Kais Saied on Friday refuted any allegations of state anti-Semitism in Tunisia, after a deadly shooting by a gendarme outside a synagogue on the island of Djerba. The attack took place on Tuesday evening as hundreds of worshipers completed the annual Jewish pilgrimage to the Ghriba synagogue, the oldest in Africa.
Three gendarmes and two faithful — an Israeli-Tunisian and a Franco-Tunisian — were killed by the assailant’s shots, before he was shot dead by the police. The Tunisian authorities denounced a “criminal” attack but refrained from qualifying it as “terrorist” or giving it an anti-Semitic dimension. But in France, the competent national anti-terrorist prosecutor’s office (Pnat) because of the French nationality of one of the victims, opened Wednesday “an investigation of the head of the assassination in relation to a terrorist enterprise”.
President Macron’s reaction
“Always, relentlessly, we will fight against anti-Semitic hatred,” said French President Emmanuel Macron, condemning the attack, in a message posted on Twitter. “We stand alongside Tunisia to continue the fight against anti-Semitism and all forms of fanaticism,” said Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Anne-Claire Legendre.
Referring to this attack during a meeting with the head of government Najla Bouden and several ministers, Kais Saied repeated that Tunisia “will remain secure despite desperate attempts to undermine its stability”, according to a press release from the presidency. He thanked the states that “expressed their solidarity” with his country after the attack while rejecting “any foreign interference because the sovereignty of Tunisia and its people are red lines that cannot be crossed.” He also “expressed his astonishment at the reactions involving accusations of anti-Semitism against Tunisia”, without specifying what he was referring to.
In support of his statements, he listed the legal texts guaranteeing freedom of worship and the rights of minorities, particularly Jews, in Tunisia. The Ghriba pilgrimage is at the heart of the traditions of Tunisians of the Jewish faith, who now number only 1,500, compared to 100,000 before independence in 1956. In 2002, the synagogue was targeted by a suicide truck bomb attack which left 21 dead. It had been claimed by Al-Qaeda.
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