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Tunisia: parliament drops anti-terrorism bill 

December 16, 2020 at 12:22 pm

A view of Tunisian Parliament in session in Tunis, Tunisia on 1 September 2020 [Yassine Gaidi/Anadolu Agency]

The Tunisian parliament has dropped a draft bill submitted by the Free Constitutional Party in which it called for official whitewashing of terrorism to be condemned, Anadolu has reported. The bill was dropped on Tuesday due to an apparent lack of a quorum.

According to Anadolu, most of the parliamentary blocs — including Ennahda, the Democratic Bloc and the Heart of Tunisia — boycotted the parliamentary sitting. This prompted the Second Deputy Speaker, Tariq Al-Fattiti, to drop the bill and cancel the session.

The blocs said in previous statements that they would boycott the session because the bill does not fall within the legislative role of parliament. Moreover, they argued that it deviates from the real concerns and problems of the Tunisian people represented by development and employment.

The bill proposed the condemnation of those who whitewash terrorism. It called on the government to target the sources of terrorism, dismantle its financial system and dissolve political associations and organisations that support violence and extremist ideologies.

The Free Constitutional Party said that it had drafted the bill due to the growing number of terrorist operations, the spread of extremist ideology, and the danger posed by a number of parliamentarians and politicians who defend terrorism and attempt to justify it.

This is not the first time that the parliament has dropped a bill submitted by the bloc. In July, it was refused parliamentary time for a vote on a bill calling for the designation of the Muslim Brotherhood as a “terrorist organisation”.

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