Tunisia police use teargas on protesters

Police in the Tunisian capital used teargas on Sunday to try to disperse hundreds of Islamists who were attacking them with stones, knives and batons, a Reuters reporter at the scene said.

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The Islamists were protesting against a ban on women who wear the niqab, or full-face veil, enrolling in university, and the decision by a Tunisian television station to broadcast an animated film depicting Allah.

Several hundred Islamist protesters gathered outside the main university campus in Tunis, and from there went to the working-class neighborhood of Jebel El-Ahmar, north of the city center, where the clashes with police broke out.

The Reuters reporter said there were about 100 police vehicles, and several hundred police officers wearing anti-riot gear. He said he saw several officers running away to escape the protesters.

The mainly young protesters blocked a main road leading through the area and threw stones at vehicles trying to get through. They shouted: "Allahu Akbar," or "God is greatest" and "We will die for Allah!"

Tension is mounting between Tunisian Islamists and the secularists who have traditionally dominate the ruling elite, before an October 23 election in which the Islamist Ennahda party is expected to win the biggest share of the vote.

Tunisia became the birthplace of the "Arab Spring" uprisings in January when mass protesters ousted president Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali.

The new caretaker government scheduled democratic elections and allowed Islamists to run for the first time, but secular groups now say that their modern, liberal values are under threat.

The latest round of unrest broke out on Saturday when Islamists tried to storm a university in Sousse, about 150 km south of Tunis. Administrators, enforcing a government ruling, had refused to enroll a woman wearing the niqab.

Earlier on Sunday, Islamists protested outside the offices of the private Nessma television station in the center of Tunis. The station had broadcast an animated film which the protesters said violated the rules of Islam by depicting Allah.

Witnesses told Reuters about 300 protesters, some with sticks and knives, tried to set fire to the television station but were prevented from doing so by a large number of police. At least 40 people were arrested, the witnesses said.

Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/44834740/ns/world_news-mideast_n_africa/

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