20120807
AFP
Abdelfattah Mourou, a veteran member of Tunisia's ruling Ennahda party, was attacked and injured by a radical Islamist late on Sunday, the victim's son Dhiaeddine Mourou told AFP.

He said his father was hit on the head by a glass during a conference on Islam and tolerance in the central town of Kairouan as he defended Youssef Seddik, an intellectual reviled by hardline Islamists who had been insulted by a member of the audience.

"One of these people took a glass and threw it at his head," Mourou said of his 64-year-old father, adding that he needed five stitches in his forehead.

He gave no other information about the assailant, who also remains out of sight in a YouTube video of the incident posted on the Internet.

Mourou is a founding member of Ennahda, the moderate Islamist party that dominates Tunisia's ruling coalition after it won the first post-uprising poll in October.

He broke with the party in the 1990s before rejoining its ranks in mid-July this year.

Tunisia's radical Islamists, or Salafists, have grown more confident and carried out numerous acts of violence since the mass uprising that toppled former dictator Zine El Abidine Ben Ali in January last year.

Ennahda has struggled to clarify its line on the Salafists, with recent violence sparking criticism that it has done too little to stop them.