Tunisian ruling party green-lights protests against French cartoons

Tunisia’s ruling party said on Wednesday that Muslims have “the right to protest” against the publication in France of cartoons mocking the Prophet Mohammed as long as they do so peacefully.

“Ennahda backs the right of Muslims to protest and calls on the use of peaceful and civilized means,” the Islamist party that leads the governing coalition in Tunis said in a statement.

It branded French weekly Charlie Hebdo’s publication of cartoons of Mohammed, one portraying him naked, as “a new attack against the Prophet.”

It said the caricatures, which came hot on the heels of a US-produced low-budget movie that mocks Islam, were an attempt to “derail the Arab Spring and push it into conflict with the West.”

It said that was a “trap” that the Arab world should “not fall into.”