(ANSAmed)
– TUNIS, MARCH 10 – Hizb ut-Tahrir is one of the more than 30 parties that have been authorised to carry out political activities after the fall of the Ben Ali regime. Its clear objective is to institute a caliphate in Tunisia, as well as a system based on the sharia.
Today the party’s spokesman Ridha Belhaj, quoted by AFP, said that the party does not rule out ”rebellion or civil disobedience”. But Belhaj continued by saying that in his view the use of violence ”in political action is unacceptable”.
This view was confirmed today in a long interview with Le Quotidien by Foued Azzouz, who is seen as one of the leading figures in the party. Hizb ut-Tahrir Tunisia was founded in 1980 and its organisation is based on small groups, ‘halakat’ (circles), which focus on making propaganda for a party that is widely supported by workers and students. Its philosophy is based on the writings of Taqiuddin-Al-Nabhanu, a Palestinian man and graduate of the al Ahar University in Cairo, who founded the party in 1953 in Saudi Arabia and Jordan. His goal was to found the party in all Arab countries. According to Azzouz, ”the State becomes a simple policeman that has to guarantee respect for the rules of the game in the new world order”. So, he adds, ”the capitalist system cannot guarantee the wellbeing of the people”. The party therefore has one single enemy: ”the capitalist system that governs the entire world”.
According to the party’s programme, the country must be led by the Ummah (Muslim nation) which selects the caliph through elections, though Islamic law remains supreme. ”Islam is the solution” claims Hizb ut-Tahrir, reusing one of the slogans of the Muslim Brotherhood, the fundamentalist Egypt movement.
(ANSAmed).
So he is opposed to violence in politics, is he?
What about the violence committed in Islam’s name?
If that isn’t political violence, then nothing is.