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#Post#: 26--------------------------------------------------
TUNISIA HIT BY STRIKE
DIR By: Ebenezer
Date: July 26, 2013, 7:21 pm
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Tunisia marked a day of mourning on Friday after gunmen killed a
leading opposition figure, sparking fresh political turmoil,
protests and a general strike which brought Tunis to near
standstill.
National airline Tunisair and European airlines cancelled
flights, with more street protests expected amid allegations of
government connivance in Thursday's killing.
MP Mohamed Brahmi, 58, of the leftist and nationalist Popular
Movement, was assassinated outside his home in Ariana, near
Tunis, by gunmen on a motorbike, witnesses said.
The state prosecutor's office said an autopsy found that Brahmi,
whose family and political colleagues said he was to be buried
as a"martyr" on Saturday in a Tunis cemetery, had been mowed
down by a hail of 14 bullets.
Balkis Brahimi, 19, one of his five children, said her father
was killed by two men in black on a motorbike.
"At around midday, we heardgunfire and my father crying with
pain. We rushed out -- my brother, mother and I -- to find his
body riddled with bullets at the wheel of his carparked in front
of the house," the red-eyed young woman told AFP.
"Despite the horror of it all, I spotted two men fleeing on a
scooter, in black T-shirts and wearing helmets, one red and the
other beige," shesaid.
"Local police took a long timecoming and a neighbour took my
father to hospital, where he died. He lived as a man of
principle and has left us a martyr," she said, fighting back
tears.
Human Rights Watch said that Brahmi's son, Adnen, had told its
researchers he heard a first and a second gunshot, then several
other shots as if from a machine gun.
"A slide into hell"
As news of the killing spread,thousands of angry protesters took
to the streetson Thursday in central Tunis and in Sidi Bouzid,
birthplaceof the Arab Spring and Brahmi's hometown.
Police in Tunis fired tear gas to disperse scores of
demonstrators who tried to set up a tent for a sit-in calling
for the fall of the regime after the second suchslaying of a
critic of the country's Islamist leadership.
Tunisian newspapers on Friday forecast a destabilisation of the
country, with La Presse warning of "a slide into hell".
"Rather than isolated acts, violence is being turned into a
system. By whom? By people determined to seize power or to stay
in power," Le Quotidien said, pointing a finger of blame at the
government led by the moderate Islamist movementEnnahda.
According to analyst Sami Brahem, "the reasons behindthe
assassination of Chokri Belaid are the same as those which led
to the murder of Mohamed Brahem: to bring about the failure of
the democratic transition."
The February 6 assassinationof Belaid, another oppositionfigure,
also outside his home,sparked a political crisis in Tunisia and
charges of Ennahda involvement.
Beji Caid Essebsi, head of the main opposition party Nidaa
Tounes, said Ennahda was toblame because it had failed to
identify the killers of Belaid. "There has not been any serious
judicial action," he told AFP.
The General Union of Tunisian Labour (UGTT), which says it has
half a million members, called Friday's general strike in
protest at "terrorism, violence and murders".
UGTT deputy secretary general Sami Tahri reported that all
sectors across the country were observing the strike, singling
out banks, health services and most public transport.
'Catastrophe for Tunisia'
The Tunisian presidency, meanwhile, told AFP that Friday would
be observed as a day of national mourning"following the
assassination of lawmaker martyr Mohamed Brahmi".
But like after the Belaid murder, Ennahda was back in the firing
line of accusations.
"I accuse Ennahda," the MP's sister Chhiba Brahmi told AFPat the
family home in Sidi Bouzid. "It was them who killed him," she
said.
Ennahda chief Rached Ghannouchi rejected the charge in a
statement to AFP.
Brahmi's killing was "a catastrophe for Tunisia", he said.
"Those behind this crime want to lead the country towards civil
war and to disrupt the democratic transition."
Political tension has been rising in Tunisia, with the launch of
the country's own version of the Tamarod (rebellion) movement
launched in Egypt that led to the ouster of Islamist president
Mohamed Morsi on3 July.
EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton condemned Brahmi's
killing, adding her voice to calls by UN human rights chief Navi
Pillay, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch for an
investigation.
Brahmi was elected MP in October 2011 for Sidi Bouzid,birthplace
of the revolution earlier that year that toppled president Zine
El Abidine BenAli. On July 7, he resigned as general secretary
of the Popular Movement, which he founded, saying it had been
infiltrated by Islamists.
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