Justice kiosk: Tunisia's alternative law enforcers {islam at work}

BBC ^ | 29 July 2013 | Tim Whewell

[Cronos]

For years, the Arab world's dictators kept radical Islamic groups in check, but the uprisings of 2011 gave them freedom to operate more openly. In Tunisia, where the Arab Spring began, a tiny but well-organised minority of fundamentalists, some of them violent, have mounted a major challenge to the state.

As a court of law it didn't look very impressive. Those seeking justice didn't enter through a pillared portico. Instead, they pushed their way past racks of women's dresses. The judge had no chair or desk. He heard his cases standing in a space a couple of metres square, bounded by steel sheeting.

But the judicial system based in a tiny clothes kiosk in the Tunisian town of Bizerte became increasingly popular with local people.

And it posed a serious challenge to the authority of the state.

The informal palais de justice was run by a softly-spoken former jihadi fighter with a long grey beard called Abdesslam Sharif. Using Islamic law, he ruled on all manner of issues.

...Abdesslam is a Salafist, part of a fast-growing movement among Sunni Muslims worldwide who believe Islam should be practised as it was by the first followers of the Prophet Muhammad in the earliest days of the faith.

..In February, Salafists were accused by police of assassinating the secular opposition leader, Chokri Belaid. A second politician, socialist Mohamed Brahmi, was shot dead last week. The interior ministry says the same gun was used in both murders.

[Cronos]

For years, the Arab world's dictators kept radical Islamic groups in check, but the uprisings of 2011 gave them freedom to operate more openly.