Tunisia’s Tamarod to Streets after Assassination of Opposition Politician

Local Editor

Tunisian opposition politician and assembly member Mohammed Brahmi was killed outside of his home on Thursday, local media reported.

"Mohammed Brahmi, general coordinator of the Popular Movement and member of the National Constituent Assembly, was shot dead outside his home in Ariana," Watanya state television and the official TAP news agency reported.

According to Tunisian website Nawaat, Brahmi, 58, was shot 11 times while leaving his house in el-Ghazala, a northern suburb of the capital Tunis.
The unidentified assailants shot Brahmi point blank before fleeing by car or motorcycle, news website Kapitalis reported. Brahmi was transported to the hospital, the publication reported, although it remained unclear whether Brahmi died on the scene or at the hospital.

"He was riddled with bullets in front of his wife and children," Mohsen Nabti, a fellow member of Brahmi's small leftist movement, said in a tearful account aired on Tunisian radio.

Brahmi, a left-wing politician, had left the al-Shaab party earlier this month to found another political movement called al-Tayar al-Shaabi. He justified his resignation from his post as general secretary of al-Shaab, which he had also founded, claiming that it had been infiltrated by the Muslim Brotherhood.

The shooting is the second assassination in six months of an opposition figure after February's murder of Chokri Belaïd, also a Popular Front coalition member.
Meanwhil, an-Nahda condemned the murder and Rachid Ghannouchi, leader of the party, said it was aimed at "halting Tunisia's democratic process and killing the only successful model in the region".

The country is led by the An-Nahda, which dominated elections in October 2011 and rules in coalition with two secular parties.
Tunisia's Tamarod or "rebellion" organization - modeled on the grouping that helped lead to the overthrow of Egyptian President Mohammad Mursi - repeated its call for Tunisia's parliament to be dissolved. It called for mass protests - inspired by Egypt's - and stated "the streets are the solution".

Following the killing of Brahmi, opposition supporters demonstrated outside the ministry of the interior in Tunis and in the central thoroughfare of Avenue Habib Bourguiba. Protests also erupted in Sidi Bouzid where the headquarters of the Ennahda party were attacked and set on fire.
Others gathered outside the hospital where Brahmi's body was taken, among them his daughter Belkaeis, and - in scenes reminiscent of the Tunisian revolution two and a half years ago - chanted "down with the rule of the extremists".

Police fired teargas to disperse protesters who stormed a local government office in the Mediterranean port of Sfax.
All flights to and from Tunisia on Friday will be cancelled after the country's biggest labour organisation, UGTT, called for a general strike to protest Brahmi's killing. Its secretary-general, Hussein Abbasi, earlier predicted that the assassination would lead the country into a "bloodbath".

Source: News Agencies, Edited by website team