Ramadan: Protests after Tunisia jails five men for 'indecency' after they ate during day
Dozens of people have
gathered in the capital of Tunisia to protest
for the right not to fast during Ramadan, following the
arrests of several abstainers. Demonstrators from the group Mouch Bessif,
meaning ‘not against our will’ in Arabic, held a peaceful protest in the
central square in Tunis, asking the country’s government to relax its stance on
those who decline to observe the fast.
At the start of June,
four men were given one-month jail sentences after police found them eating in
a public garden in northern Tunisia during daylight hours, with the local
prosecutor accusing them of engaging in “a provocative act of public
indecency”. The men were arrested
after a series of complaints from their neighbours. The following week, another
man received a short prison sentence for smoking a cigarette outside during the
day. Tunisia has no law banning eating or drinking in public during Ramadan,
but the state has a constitutional role as a “guardian of religion”,
which it used to justify the arrests.
The protesters argued
that the constitution is also meant to protect the “freedom of belief and
conscience” and that these values were being eroded by government control over
Ramadan. One protester smoking a cigarette held a placard asking: "Why
does it bother you if you fast and I eat?" It is not known whether he
was the man who was later jailed.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/africa/ramadan-tunisia-protests-five-jailed-men-failing-observe-muslim-holiday-islam-a7787381.html