Last Friday, Nessma proposed the Iranian film “Persepolis”, translated for the occasion in the Tunisian dialect. What Nessma ignoled (or not) is that this film was going to cause a real outcry, especially on Facebook. The messages of indignation and insults towards the TV channel have multiplied at a crazy speed. An event to organize an event and “close” the said chain was created and have gathered many people.
The date of the event was scheduled for this Sunday and actually took place. According to Mosaique FM, an attempted attack on the premises of Nessma TV was aborted by the police. The latter had to work, using tear gas bombs, to annihilate these attacks. The police have also arrested around thirty people, said Hichem Meddeb, spokesperson for the Interior Ministry, on radio.
For those who have never seen the film (animated), the origin of this anger against Nessma comes from two scenes where God appears in the form of an old man with a long white beard (see photo), speaking to a little girl (the heroine of the film). Representing God, in any form, is a blasphemy that could not go unnoticed, according to the various messages posted on Facebook and Twitter.
In addition to this representation of God, others evoke a campaign of Nessma against Islamic parties. The debate which followed the film evoked the possible similarity between what is happening in the work of Marjane Satrapi and Tunisia, if an Islamic party took power. Persepolis evokes the history of Iran before and after the establishment of the Islamic Republic.
Recall that two years ago, with the series “House of Saddam” whose main actor is Israeli, Nessma had been accused of being in bad faith. After January 14, the same TV channel is once again pointed out. It is implicitly positioned against Ennahdha and the other Islamic parties. Several of his reports and programs do not contradict these impressions.
Finally, on the networks, the followers of conspiracy theories even go so far as to say that Nessma tries by all means to create mess in the country in order to repel the date of the constituent elections.
Meanwhile, the chain only makes the accusations brought against it even more … Is it a strategy to increase its audience or simply a freedom of expression to which Tunisians are not yet used?
