Tunisia Islamist causes outcry with "caliphate" talk

[shira]

Tunis (Reuters) - Tunisia's secularists said their fears about an Islamist takeover were being realized on Tuesday after a senior official in the moderate Islamist party which won last month's election invoked the revival of a caliphate, or Islamic state.

Footage posted on the Internet showed Hamadi Jbeli, the secretary-general of the Ennahda party, telling supporters that "We are in the sixth caliphate, God willing."

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The use of the term caliphate in Arab politics is highly sensitive because it is a concept promoted by groups at the radical end of the Islamist spectrum, such as Hizb-ut-Tahrir, which is banned in many countries. Moderate Islamist movements such as Ennahda or Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood generally steer clear of the term because of these associations.

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Ennahda is the first Islamist party to win power in the Arab world since Hamas won an election in the Palestinian Territories in 2006. "This speech is very dangerous," Said Issam Chebbi, a leading member of the secularist PDP party, told Reuters. "This is what we feared."

http://www.chicagotribune.com/sns-rt-us-tunisia-islam-caliphatetre7ae1zd-20111115,0,5914418.story

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Directly related...

Hamas Representative Addresses Tunisian Political Rally
http://www.tunisia-live.net/2011/11/15/hamas-representative-addresses-tunisian-political-rally/

Shocking news here. :eyes: