Renaissance Party

Renaissance Party (Arabic: "Hizb al-Nahda", also "Hizb Ennahda"; French: "Parti de la Renaissance") is an un-authorized islamist opposition political party in Tunisia.

Originally known as Islamic Action, the party changed its name to Movement of the Islamic Tendency, and then in 1989 "Hizb al-Nahda". ["Columbia World Dictionary of Islamism", Olivier Roy and Antoine Sfeir, editors, 2007, p.354-5] Although traditionally shaped by the thinking of Sayyid Qutb and Maududi, starting in the 1980s they began to be described as moderate Islamist. They advocated democracy and a "Tunisian" form of Islamism which recognized political pluralism. They also discussed a "dialogue" with the West. These statements should not be misconstrued as they reject Western notions of liberal democracy and believe in an essentially Islamic constitution. Critics charge that one of their main leaders, named Rashid Al-Ghannushi, had a history of violence yet in courts he was accused by the ruling party of organizing a non authorized political party. Others say he supports any form multi-party democracy that offers a minimum of freedom for his party and followers.

Al Nahda a party published the banned newspaper "Al-Fajr". The editor of "Al Fajr", Hamadi Jebali, was sentenced to sixteen years imprisonment in 1992 for membership of the un-authorized organisation and for "aggression with the intention of changing the nature of the state". Al Nahda members were allowed to stand in the 1989 elections but the movement was banned in 1991. The Arabic language television station "El Zeitouna" is believed to be connected with Al Nahda.

References

External links

* [http://meria.idc.ac.il/journal/1997/issue2/jv1n2a7.html MERIA article]
* [http://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&lr=&safe=active&q=cache:IZvitYeEzCMJ:www.biu.ac.il/SOC/besa/meria/journal/1998/issue2/sivan.pdf+Tunisian+renaissance+party Article by Emmanuel Sivan]