Tunisia's draft constitution brands women 'complementary' to men

Things are moving as expected in Tunisia.  The Islamists are taking control of the government and installing Sharia bit by bit.  While there is a desire for a moderate and relaxed form of Islam among the people, they are up against a well organized, financed and ruthless enemy in the form of the Muslim Brotherhood.  In the end, I fear an Islamist take over throughout most if not all of North Africa in the next few years.  As the various radical factions take over the governments of N. Africa, the region will become even more unstable with the historic infighting among taking place with even more violence and barbarism as each tries to dominate the others.

FROM THENATIONAL.AE

Tunisia's draft constitution brands women 'complementary' to men

Alice Fordham
Aug 6, 2012

TUNIS // Tunisian politicians have provoked outrage by debating draft laws that would impose prison sentences for vaguely defined acts of blasphemy and approving wording in the country's new constitution that says women are "complementary" to men.

The clash between the Islamist-dominated interim government and those who fear that rights and freedoms are being eroded is the latest struggle in the battle to redefine Tunisia's political and cultural landscape after the 23-year rule of former president Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, who was deposed last year.

"Bad day at the Commission of Rights and Freedoms," read a note posted last week on the Facebook page of Selma Mabrouk, a member of the centrist Ettakatol party and the parliamentary committee tasked with drafting a new constitution. The ruling, she said, "seems to break completely with the idea of equality of the sexes".

The panel approved an article to the new constitution under the principle that a woman is a "complement with the man in the family and an associate to the man in the development of the country", according to Ms Mabrouk's August 1 Facebook post.

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