27/07/2013 09:59
Protests hit Tunisia for second day after assassination
Demonstrations swept Tunisia for a second day on Friday after the assassination of a secular opposition figure, with one protester killed and several injured in the southern city of Gafsa, witnesses said, according to Reuters.
Late on Friday, 42 opposition members announced their resignation from the 217-seat Constituent Assembly to protest the killing on Thursday of Mohamed Brahmi, a member of the Arab nationalist Popular Front party.
Khamis Kssila of the Nida Touns party told a news conference the departing members would begin a sit-in to demand the dissolution of the assembly and formation of a national salvation government, ideas rejected by Prime Minister Ali Larayedh.
The assembly, controlled by Islamists, is in charge of drafting a new constitution for the North African nation of 11 million people.
Divisions between Islamists and their secular opponents have deepened since Tunisian President Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali was toppled in 2011 in the first of the Arab Spring revolutions.
Two witnesses told Reuters that anti-government protester Mofti Mohamed died during protests in Gafsa on Friday night. There were conflicting accounts of how he died.
There were also several people injured in Gafsa from teargas, witnesses said.
It was the first such death since protests erupted after Brahmi was shot 14 times, in the second killing of a secular politician in Tunisia this year.
Brahmi's family said his funeral would take place at 0800 GMT on Saturday.
Several thousand Islamists took to the streets of Tunis on Friday to defend the government from popular demands that it resign over the assassination of Brahmi.