Andrew Hammond: Film a lightning rod for anger of Tunisia's Islamists

Six months after Tunisia's uprising, religious tension is rising over the limits of freedom of expression, as Islamists challenge liberals in what was once a citadel of Arab secularism.

Last week, several dozen men attacked a cinema in Tunis that had advertised a film publicly titled in French Ni Dieu, Ni Maitre ("No God, No Master") by Tunisian-French director Nadia El-Fani, an outspoken critic of political Islam.

Police arrested 26 men, but Salafists - a purist trend within political Islam who advocate a return to the ways of early Muslims - gathered outside the justice ministry two days later to demand their release, leading to scuffles with lawyers.

Security forces were heavily deployed in central Tunis to stop protests by Salafists after Friday prayers last week.

Secular media and intellectuals have reacted with alarm, warning that freedoms in Tunisia - a bastion of secularism under 23 years of tough police rule by Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali - are in danger of being lost.

Taieb Zahar, writing in the French-language monthly Realites, said: "This is a foretaste of what awaits us if firm measures are not taken against these sorcerers' apprentices, since nothing will stop them attacking hotels, nightclubs or ordinary people sitting in a restaurant."

Tunisia was the launchpad for pro-democracy protest movements that have spread across North Africa and the Middle East since Mr Ben Ali was forced from power in January. But a slow transition to a democratic system in the country is causing tension.

An interim president and cabinet will not hold elections until October for an assembly to write a new constitution that will allow for parliamentary and presidential polls.

Abdelmajid Habibi - a leader in the Salafist Tahrir party which police accused of staging the cinema attack - said the arts community was trying to provoke Salafists but misjudging the mood among ordinary Tunisians who are more conservative than the father of the modern state, Habib Bourguiba, imagined.

He said: "The country doesn't need to show a film like this or with this name, especially with the situation Tunisia is going through. This is a deliberate attempt to provoke people."

He said that, despite government policies since independence from France that promoted emancipation of women - including banning polygamy, easing women's access to divorce and discouraging wearing the veil - Islamic conservatism was strong in Tunisia.

"Yes, the Tunisian people do not live the Islamic way, but they are not secular. Society isn't those who appear on television (talkshows].They have no popularity, they are a minority among Tunisians," he added.

As Arab leaders such as Mr Ben Ali and Hosni Mubarak, who was forced from office in Egypt in February, tried to shut Islamist forces out of politics, liberal elites began to see the state as a line of defence against increasing conservatism in Arab societies.

Today, many in Tunisia's cultural elite look to France as a political and cultural model, and Tunisian directors are often fted in France, which funds many of their films.

Ms Fani's documentary, which calls for protecting secularism in post-Ben Ali Tunisia, was "like a declaration of war, and people wanted to say that they were against it," Mr Habibi added.

An atheist, Ms Fani has campaigned for removing an article in Tunisia's constitution naming Islam is the religion of state. She says it precludes the rights of Jews, Christians, atheists and others.

Speaking from France, she said: "There is a battle now to make people understand better that if we are to safeguard the liberty gained in removing the dictator, we must protect all liberties … in Tunisia today I do not have the right to say that I do not believe in God."

Ms Fani said she had changed the documentary's title to Laicite Insh'Allah ("Secularism, God Willing") at the behest of French distributors after it showed at Cannes this year.

She acknowledged that Tunisians are almost entirely Muslim, but said many wanted the right to choose whether they fast during Ramadan, and women needed freedom to dress as they wish.

She said: "The Islamists are not moderate, they will try to take us back to how people lived 1,400 years ago. Tunisia must continue to be modern. We must understand secularism is an element of progress."