Tunisia's Jewish community said that it is making an official complaint regarding anti-Semitic slogans that were chanted at a protest held, on Sunday, by radical Islamist Salafists.
The demonstration called for the imposition of sharia, or Islamic law, as the main source of legislation in the constitution that is currently being drafted.
“The call to fight against the Jews is absurd,” said Tunisia’s Ministry of Religious Affairs in a statement issued Tuesday, according to the French news agency AFP. “The ministry rejects this attack against all Tunisian citizens. Tunisian Jews are full citizens.”
Representative of the country’s Jewish community, Roger Bismuth has threatened to sue a Salafist preacher who shouted, “young people rise up, let’s wage a war against the Jews.”
“This is the third time this sort of thing has happened. It's too much. I can't accept it and that's why I'm lodging a complaint,” Bismuth said.
“Justice must be done,” he asserted.
While Tunisia has a Muslim majority, numbering about 10 million, it has a Jewish population consisting of about 1,500 people.
The leftist Ettajdid party in a statement Tuesday condemned “the calls to violence, hatred and even murder from fanatical Salafi groups that have again targeted citizens of the Jewish faith,” AFP reported.