Tunisia moves to ban radical Islamist party

Tunisia’s government is asking a military court to outlaw the radical Islamist Hizb ut-Tahrir movement, which has been regularly accused of “undermining public order” since its legalization in 2012, an official said Wednesday.

“A request to ban was submitted recently. We are awaiting the decision of the military investigative judge,” the official, who spoke on condition on anonymity, tells AFP.

He says a total ban on the party is imminent.

Hizb ut-Tahrir is known for focusing on unifying Muslims into a caliphate and is already banned in several countries.

The party last month successfully overturned a decision by a civil judge to ban it, and has denounced what it says is “police harassment” in Tunisia.

It released an apparently inflammatory statement saying that “the government… knows that its time has come and that heads and hands will be cut.”

— AFP