Tunisians mark Belaid’s murder anniversary, throwing light on Ennahda’s militia

Sara Rashad

The Ennahda Movement, the political arm of the Muslim Brotherhood in Tunisia, goes from one crisis to crisis.

This was manifest a day after Tunisians staged protests to mark the anniversary of the 2013 killing of leftist activist Chokri Belaid who is believed to have been killed by Ennahda.

The demonstrators chanted slogans about the head of Ennahda, Rached Ghannouchi, calling him “murderer”. They asked Ennahda to present Belaid’s assassins to court. The demonstrators also said the Islamist movement is in power to only protect itself.

Under the microscope

Police used force to disperse the demonstration, opening the door for impressions that freedoms are taking steps back in Tunisia.

However, the demonstration revived Ennahda’s fears on Belaid’s murder and links between this murder and its secret militia.

Ennahda has been worried since the late Tunisian president Beji Caid Essebsi who vowed in 2018 to present Belaid’s murderers to court, hinting at the possible involvement of Ennahda in this murder.

Meanwhile, lawyer Rida al-Radawi, a member of a panel of lawyers defending the case of politicians murdered in Tunisia in 2013, revealed new information about links between Ennahda, on one hand, and the murder of Belaid and Mohamed Brahmi, another politician who was killed in the same year, on the other.

He said he had reached new information about the secret militia of Ennahda.

This militia, he said, was formed as a security agency under a tip from the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt.

Al-Radawi noted that the members of the secret militia were given training by a delegation from the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood.

When the delegation arrived in Tunisia, al-Radawi said, Ennahda claimed that it was here to give Ennahda members a course in farming methods.