Tunisia - Tunisian Rights Group Charges Police With Targeting Jews

Tunisia - On Wednesday, a Tunisian Rights Group accused local police of targeting a remote Jewish community on the island of Djerba with harassment, saying the community has been victimized on three separate occasions.

AFP repots that Yamina Thabet, president of the Tunisian Association Supporting Minorities, said after visiting the Jewish community in Djerba that, “Tunisian Jews feel in danger, they are really afraid.”

Witness testimony to the harassment say the first occurred when police, unannounced, descended on a Jewish holiday meal, spraying Jewish diners with tear gas under the guise that they were retrieving a stolen motorbike.

The second involved a man who, after introducing himself as “the new Hitler,” assaulted one of the adults in the Jewish prayer hall while the children looked on.

The man, who is also accused of assaulting 2 young girls, was briefly detained, but the Jewish community remains concerned that no further charges have been discussed with regard to his blatant racism.

Also of concern is the fact that the judiciary has failed to bring charges of racial hatred against an imam who called for a “divine genocide” during a sermon.

Thabet said Tunisian Jews are “fed up with being used during visits by politicians as evidence for the peaceful coexistence (between Muslims and Jews) and when the law is broken, they are the first victims of negligence” by local authorities.