Tunisian imam calls to ‘sterilize the wombs of Jewish women’
Djerba Jews at the El-Ghriba Synagogue on Tunisia's southern island. (photo credit:upyernoz via CC/JTA)RELATED TOPICS
TUNISIAN ASSOCIATION TO SUPPORT MINORITIESAHMAD AL-SUHAYLIQAIS EL-BELTAGI
The Tunisian Association to Support Minorities is suing a prominent Tunisian imam for hateful incitement against Jews.
During a Friday sermon broadcast live on November 30 on Hannibal TV, Sheikh Ahmad Al-Suhayli of Rades, a suburb of Tunis, told his followers at the Khatib mosque that “God wants to destroy this sprinkling of Jews… and is for sterilizing the wombs of Jewish women,” the liberal Egyptian daily Al-Masry Al-Youm reported.
“The sermon… has received a wave of domestic and international condemnation,” El-Beltagi stated. He said the lawsuit would not include Hannibal TV because the sermon was broadcast live and the content was not able to be previewed beforehand.
The London-based Al-Quds Al-Arabi reported that this was technically the first time that incitement against Jews was reported inside a mosque in Tunisia, which has a Jewish community of less than 2,000, who live mostly on the island of Djerba.
This was, however, the fourth time incitement against Jews has been reported in the public sphere generally since the overthrow of president Zine El Abidine Ben Ali in 2011, prompting Jewish community leaders to demand security protection from the Tunisian government.