Tunisia’s Ennahda intimidating opposition students

Mahmud Mohamadi

Ennahda Movement, the political arm of the Muslim Brotherhood in Tunisia, continues to give a hard time to university students who oppose its plan of controlling Tunisia’s academic institutions.

In trying to control these institutions, Ennahda wants to draw in Tunisian youth who can defend its political project.

Targeting students

The General Federation of Tunisian Students has complained against encroachments by Ennahda which has specified a huge amount of cash for this objective.

The movement, the federation said, especially targets its members, jeopardizing their physical safety and privacy.

The federation is coming under attacks from the Islamist movement after it had uncovered links between Ennahda and some of the terrorist operations taking place in Tunisia.

It said some of its members had been arbitrarily dismissed and others referred to disciplinary councils, including most recently some of the students of the Higher Institute of Human Sciences of Tunis.

A student of the College of Medicine had been dismissed for four months against the background of a Facebook post in which he criticized Ennahda, the federation said.

“These cases are all part of the systematic harassment of the federation by Ennahda,” the federation said.

It said this harassment comes after the federation had uncovered the students’ branch of the secret apparatus of Ennahda and the presence of links between the movement and terrorist attacks in Tunisia.

Federation activist Riyad Grad warned against the desire of Tunisia’s Islamists to control Tunisia’s political life and re-impose the pre-January 2011 conditions, in which terrorism thrived in Tunisia.

“Ennahda is hostile to freedoms, especially the freedoms of unions to operate inside the universities,” Grad told The Reference.

He called for public support to the federation during the strike planned for November 4.

Conflict

Conflicts between Ennahda and the university students started appearing in April this year when the General Federation of Tunisian Students kicked Ali Laarayedh, a senior member of Ennahda, and Abd al-Hamid Jalasi, a member of the consultative council of the movement out of a seminar at the University of Manouba.

The students of the university chanted slogans against Ennahda and asked the two movement members to get out, which angered Jalasi and Laarayedh.

Ennahda then demanded an investigation into the incident. However, the head of the General Federation of Tunisian Students accused Ennahda of forming a students’ branch of its secret apparatus.