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Zoubeir Souissi / Reuters
A forensic inspector looks at the car of opposition politician Chokri Belaid, who was shot dead outside his home in Tunis on Wednesday.
Updated at 12:08 p.m. ET: Tens of thousands of Tunisians took to the streets Wednesday to protest the apparent assassination of secular opposition leader Chokri Belaid, witnesses and local media reported.
Belaid, a staunch opponent of the moderate Islamist-led government, died after he was shot in the head and chest outside his home in Tunis.
The Interior Ministry said a man fired at Belaid then jumped onto a waiting motorcycle, which sped away.
Unrest built throughout the day, with the secular opposition Popular Front and it allied opposition members eventually saying they would pull out of the assembly that is acting as Tunisia's parliament and is charged with writing a constitution. The Popular Front also called for a general strike.
Fethi Belaid / AFP - Getty Images, file
Tunisian politician Chokri Belaid, seen in this file image, was assassinated early Wednesday.
Prime Minister Hamadi Jebali described the killing as a “political assassination” and a blow to the country’s 2011 Arab Spring revolution, Reuters reported. “By killing him they wanted to silence his voice," Jebali said.
The victim’s brother blamed the killing on the ruling party, Ennahda, of which Jebali is a member. The party's headquarters was later set on fire.
"I accuse [Ennahda leader] Rached Ghannouchi of assassinating my brother," Abdelmajid Belaid told AFP. "My brother was assassinated. I am desperate and depressed."
France24 reporter David Thomson posted a picture on Twitter of Belaid's angry wife clutching bloodstained clothing.
The ruling party, however, vehemently denied involvement.
"Ennahda is completely innocent of the assassination of Belaid. … Is it possible that the ruling party could carry out this assassination when it would (only) disrupt investment and tourism?" party President Rached Gannouchi told Reuters in an interview.
"Tunisia today is in the biggest political stalemate since the revolution. We should be quiet and not fall into a spiral of violence. We need unity more than ever," he added.
Images posted on Twitter by English-language news source Tunisia Live showed angry crowds facing riot police on the streets of Tunis on Wednesday.
In front of the Ministry of the Interior in downtown #Tunis now #ChokriBelaid #Tunisia twitter.com/Tunisia_Live/s�
— Tunisia Live (@Tunisia_Live) February 6, 2013
Witnesses told Reuters that thousands of protesters had gathered there and in Sidi Bouzid, cradle of the Arab Spring uprisings.
Protesters were "burning tires and throwing stones at the police," said Mehdi Horchani, a Sidi Bouzid resident. "There is great anger."
Police responded by firing shots in the air and using teargas, both in Sidi Bouzid and in Tunis, where an estimated 20,000 protesters had massed outside the Interior Ministry.
Authorities scattered the Tunis protesters as an ambulance carrying Belaid's body approached, Reuters reported.
Tunisians rose up against long-time leader Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali after vegetable seller Mohamed Bouazizi set fire to himself in Sidi Bouzid in late 2010.
President Moncef Marzouki cut short a visit to France to return to Tunisia following Wednesday’s killing, according Tim Marshall, diplomatic editor of U.K. news channel Sky News.
Tunisia -- the first Arab country to oust its leader and hold free elections -- had made a relatively smooth transition to democracy.
However, it has recently been plagued by economic hardship and the threat from al-Qaida-linked militants.
Reuters contributed to this report.
Leave a Comment:
credit Obama and his policies. his on going financial / military support for the Muslim brotherhood to topple these governments with extreme jihad control, all the while calling it "democracy".
WWW3 is inevitable
You're an idiot!
Obama and many US leaders don't have any control on the Sunni Islamic extremists fast backward march to seventh century desert days raping, kidnapping, stealing, looting and inventing enemies to hate and kill!
"Belaid, a staunch opponent of the moderate Islamist-led government, was shot dead outside his home in Tunis."
What are these "moderate" and "Islamist"?
So far the Arab spring has done nothing other than elevate radical Islam to to the top in every country its tainted. Obama and the progressives have fully supported the rise of America's enemies world wide and its time we started realizing that Progressives are the true enemy of America.
The religion of pieces strikes again, at least their appears to be strong support for secularists, the revolutions for democracy in this part of the world are far from over. We need to stay out of these events unless asked by a group supporting freedom(Mali), we haven't in the past and it has bitten us in the ass. It will likely be years before these countries settle, ousting a government is swift, setting up long term stability and unity takes time, and can be fragile for a very long time, look at us. There will likely be more events, if we look through history, lasting change takes time, it wont be done in a year or two.
Glenn, I see from your many talents, predicting the future is your strong suit or should I say your forte. Too bad you couldn't predict the President's victory in November. Bummer!
Also, it is their country, they can do whatever the hell they want. You think you can do a better job typing from your computer? I doubt it. Since when does an American President dictate to other countries what to do and when? I think you are barking up the wrong tree.
Mike, better look in the mirror before calling names. Your comments on here and other postings are as un-American as possible. If you want to live oppressed, how about just move to the oppressed country of your choice and get the h... out of this freedom loving country!!!!!!!
Chucksmear..go with Mike. Two less mindless blind lemmings taking up vaulable space.
For those who are perplexed by the situation I suggest you read this analysis by investigative journalist Seymour Hersh from 2007. It certainly answers a lot of questions about the last few years over there.
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2007/03/05/070305fa_fact_hersh?currentPage=all
Wow! Obama is now the mastermind of the Tunisian revolution?? Give me a break, you guys are so angry that you actually think Obama has had something to do with Tunisia!! You have left reason on the doorstep this morning.
wow...
There is a moderate Islamist government? Learn something new every day.
"Thousands of Tunisians took to the streets Wednesday to protest the apparent assassination of secular opposition leader Chokri Belaid, witnesses and local media reported."
Add one more "secular" in a Muslim majority nation!
So much for free elections. I wonder how long Muslims are going to put up with Jihadist Muslims killing them.
The entire Middle-East and North Africa is a waste. Islam the religion of "pieces".
So end the peaceful tolerance's of the Muslims with democracy . I guess chapter 2 of the Koran contains information how to kill and rape your Neighbor and family into submission. The title of this chapter is, "Terror as your friend." One of the ghost writers of this chapter was Hitler...
It is an unfortunate loss, but I think this NEEDS to happen. If the people of the Middle East do not fight for their own rights then who will? The United States has been occupying the Mideast for over a decade and has not made much progress for democracy. If the people do not make their own democracies the culture may not change.
Tunisia isn't in the Middle east.
I heard on TV that there was a democracy there. We have the killings in our democracy , too. JFK was killed because he was against the Federal Reserve and the VietNam war. After all the lies and investigations we recently heard even the Kennedy Family say that JFK was killed by more than one gunman. Did you miss that news ? Did anyone hear about Wellstone murder ?
Just like the fact in the news that Piers Morgan missed about Ar-15 - he keeps still harping about Ar-15 in Newtown, Ct countrary to facts. Please help him to get the facts straight. He needs to watch video.today.msnbc/today/50208495# because he still thinks, as of yesterday, that AR 15 killed the kids in Newtown while the video says that AR 15 was in the car. CNN will lose the little credibility they have if he continues. If people hear such contradictions in the news they may think it was staged to get guns away from people, just like 9/11 to get us to hate Muslims and support endless wars.
Joe-3496279
Your tin foil hat is to tight, I only support the universal background check part of the proposed legislation, and I have a pretty decent knowledge of firearms, I have watched that video countless times, that is not an AR 15 in the trunk. If you knew anything other than conspiracy theories and hysteria you would realize that. An AR15's charging handle is rear of the chamber in front of the stock and close to centered, the cop is cycling the bolt from the right side about center of the weapon, if you watch closely you can see a red shotgun shell being extracted. The weapon in question is likely a Saiga 12gauge shotgun.
Here you go again!
"it has recently been plagued by economic hardship and the threat from al-Qaida-linked militants."
Contributions from the "strategic ally" House of Saud, a strict Wahhabi ruler with 5000 princes and princesses and their clerics and Islamic scholars!
They have invented extremist Sunni versions of Salaffi and Wahhabi and their haters' and killers' gangs like al Qaida, Taliban, MB, Salaffi, Boko Haram and so on; have been funding them; and exporting them globally!
We lost Iran to radical muslims under the Carter incompetence. We are losing other secular countries to radical islamic forces at a much faster rate under Obama.
Now, now . . . all the liberal, Kumbaya-singing, flower-sniffing types will tell you this is only a small percentage of Muslims who are doing this in . . . . Mali, and Sudan, and Nigeria, and Yemen, and Tunisia, and Philippines, and Thailand, and Iraq, and India, and Kashmir, and Chechnya, and Dagestan, and Indonesia, and Eritrea, and Ethiopia, and Niger, and Morocco, and so on, and so on, and so on. I'm thinking maybe 80 or 90 guys, tops. 80 or 90 million is more like it.
Glenn Beck pegged the number at 10% - so it would be more like 160 million.
If you can't trust his numbers, who can you trust?
democracy at work
Revolutions are bloody and not always successful. They're till in the early process. Let's keep out of it
I believe AlQueda did this!
Get the moderates to distrust each other then send in the radicals, .....
My thoughts exactly. The Tunisian islamists in power are about as islamist as the GOP is christian. They aren't terrorists and they have been trying to write a constitution for all of Tunisia - one that actually looks better than what they have so far offered in Egypt. If you look where Tunisia is you can see that it borders the same areas affected by the nomadic islamists who tried to take over Mali. This is just Al Qaeda's way of trying to create cracks in Tunisia so that it can sneak in during a conflict like it has in Syria.
I know the people over there are angry, but this has the hallmark of a very small group trying to sow sectarian discord so they can come in like cockroaches and feed on the crumbs.
... they seem to be falling for it!