AFP - The Tunisian Islamist opposition Ghannouchi was scheduled to return Sunday afternoon in London after his country for over 20 years of exile, through the fall of President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, who had harshly mate Islamists in the early 90s.
A spokesman for the old opponent, aged 69, said that this return, feared by some sectors of Tunisian society, including feminists and secular circles, will not be "triumphant" and on the contrary Rached Ghannouchi who wants to hand over to young people in the lead, simply wants to return as a "free man".
During a demonstration, hundreds of women screamed Saturday at Tunis their determination to defend the emancipation gained over half a century on the eve of the return of Rached Ghannouchi.
"We are here to affirm the rights acquired by women and prevent any backsliding, to say that we are not prepared to negotiate our freedom with the Islamists," said Amel Betaib, a lawyer.
Rached Ghannouchi founded in 1981 Nahda (Renaissance), with intellectuals inspired by the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, and said today represent a moderate form of Islam close to the AKP in Turkey.
Tolerated, including the coming to power of Ben Ali in 1987, the party was suppressed after the 1989 elections, which he claimed the list had received at least 17% of the vote.
Mr. Ghannouchi had then left Tunisia to Algeria, then to London. In 1992 he was sentenced in absentia to life imprisonment with other religious leaders for a plot against the president.
The Tunisian government transition, set up after the fall of Ben Ali on January 14, adopted a draft amnesty law that will concern the Islamists, and must be voted by Parliament.What is not yet done but should not however be an obstacle to his return.
Ghannouchi, who no longer president of the Islamist movement, says he also will not be a presidential candidate in the forthcoming elections and wants to transform his movement into a legal political party to participate in upcoming legislative transition team in power since the fall of Ben Ali's task was to organize.
A law still in effect prohibited from forming a political party on a strictly religious.
