Around 70 people turned up for a demonstration organised by the Committee for Democratic Vigilance in Tunisia (CDVTunisie). The demonstration took place in front of the Tunisian embassy in avenue de Tervueren in Woluwe-Saint-Pierre. It happened at 2pm on Sunday. The demonstration was in response to the terrorist attack on a tourist hotel near Sousse on Friday. 38 people died.
The demonstration was mostly silent. The Tunisian ambassador was present. Members of the Moroccan community also joined Tunisian Belgians to show their support. “We must unite to fight terrorism”, says Fethii El Hadjali, president of CVDTunisie. “We must not abandon Tunisia. It is a new democracy, which needs support now more than ever. Tunisia lives off Tourism, so it needs everybody”. Fethii El Hadajali is encouraging the cancelation of the Tunisian debt, saying it would be a “strong political gesture”.
After the bloody attack at the heart of one of Tunisia’s main tourist areas, there is fear that the country’s democratic foundations will be undermined. In October 2013, a kamikaze killed himself without managing to injure anyone else on a beach in Sousse. Three months ago, 22 people were killed in Bardo museum in Tunis. The CDVTunisie thinks this form of violence is aimed at destabilising the county and its economy. But the association thinks the governments that have come after the fall of Dictator Ben Ali in 2011 are also partly responsible. They “have failed to put in place an economic and social policy that will protect our country from terrorism”, it says.
(Source: Belga)
