A member of the group ascribes the growing presence and aggressiveness of pro-Sharia Islamic hardliners in Tunisia — people who think stabbing an atheist is a pious act — to the “so-called revolution” of 2011. You know, the “Arab Spring.”

“Tunisian Islamist extremists are threatening and attacking freethinkers, a sign of increasing violence in Tunisia following the 2011 revolution,” by Tara Abhasakun, Conatus News, March 1, 2018 (thanks to The Religion of Peace):

Last week, Tunisian citizen Nacer Amari, a member of an organisation called Tunisian Freethinkers, announced on Facebook that the president of the organisation had been stabbed and assaulted by Islamic extremists outside a bar in Tunis.

The attackers, believing that they had not inflicted enough harm, continued to follow the victim, Hatem Al Imam, to his home, where they attempted to break in.

Ameri said that members of the organisation had been attacked in the past and that he has also received death threats.

Two other members of Tunisian Freethinkers spoke to me about their experiences with attacks and threats from extremists.

A Revolution Gone Wrong

Sarah Angel, another member of Tunisian Freethinkers, said that the growing extremism was a result of the “so-called revolution” in 2011 when President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali was ousted.

“Tunisia’s constitution is relative[ly new]… and we are a country that is ahead of humanitarian laws in the Middle East as a whole…[for] example… the first country to prevent polygamy. But after the so-called revolution, political Islam penetrated into the entire country in an unprecedented manner, assassinations accumulated like the assassination of Chokri Belaid, Mohamed Al Brahmi, and others without any consideration from the state.”

The two assassinated people who Angel mentioned, Chokri Belaid and Mohamed Al Brahmi, were political leaders who were both assassinated in 2013 for their opposition to Islamist parties….