Press Release
O President! You Have Overstepped Your Remit
(Translated)

At a time when Tunisia is suffering from accumulating disastrous crises and unjust afflictions as a result of the bad caretaking of affairs and the corruption of the consultants in all of its institutions, at a time when many of the regions of the country are suffering from thirst, at the time when those injured and harmed in the Qasrain accident could not find the necessary assistances to aid them and at a time when our soldiers are being killed by the hand of betrayal and criminality... At exactly this time Beji Caid Essebsi, the Tunisian President, held a meeting of the National Security Council to say that Hizb ut Tahrir wants to “il faut trouver une solution” (cut off heads and hands) and called for the necessity of finding a solution to deal with Hizb ut Tahrir, in a gross distortion of the Hizb’s press release.

We say to the President of the state: From where did you understand that Hizb ut Tahrir will cut the hands and the heads, have you read the press release?! Or do you not know the Arabic language? Or are you content with what your foul confidants and your media for hire, adorn for you?

O “President”! What came in our statement is explicitly evident and clear, indicating that we in Tunisia are in need of a strong and honourable state that punishes the criminals. The task and role of punishing the criminals is not designated to Hizb ut Tahrir or any other political party. Rather it is the role of the strong and dignified state (definitely not your state) which punishes anyone who has committed a crime against the Muslims from among the people of Tunisia and other than the Tunisians. That is because the Muslims will never forget the killing of 300 of the Tunisian people in the days of the revolution in cold-blooded murder. Then what happened after that? Nothing!!... Indeed, what is even worse and bitterer is that it was said to the bereaved and the orphans that those who killed your sons and fathers are ghosts who don’t exist! O President, was it not you who said in the days when you were head of the transitional government in 2011 “Whoever finds a sniper bring him to me” in a mocking and not responsible tone, so that the killer escapes from punishment?! And where is the killer of Shoukri Bileid?!

And the killer of Muhammad Al-Ibrahimi? And the killer of our soldiers in Ash-Sha’anabi?! So who has been brought forth for them?! The, who was it who killed the people of Tunisia in 1984, who killed them in 1978, who killed the Yousefs in murder at the beginning of the “so-called independence” and what is the story of the “Dark Officers”??? Who killed the people of Iraq, who is killing our people today in Syria and who is destroying Libya completely???

O President! The people of Tunisia have not seen that you are serious about punishing criminals and they have not seen that you are serious about restoring the plundered wealth which has reached an amount multiple times greater than the current Tunisian budget. Rather, they have seen you being serious and striving with concerted effort for the sake of reconciling with the criminals who have stolen from them and made them go hungry. And they have seen you rush with great haste to grant ownership of a piece of Tunisian land to America the empire of terrorism and number one enemy of the Muslims, and they have seen you place the National Security of Tunisia under the supervision of NATO.

We in Hizb ut Tahrir in the Wilayah of Tunisia condemn the demeaning address coming from the highest positions of authority in the land based upon a deliberate twisting of the press release that we issued and we reiterate the following:

1. The unjustified determination of the President of the state to incite against Hizb ut Tahrir confirms his ideological hostility to the Hizb. And he has declared that explicitly previously when he was at the head of the government in 2011 when he said at that time that he had personally intervened to prevent Hizb ut Tahrir from attaining a licence for legal activity.

2. That when the President of the state said “On every occasion the judiciary has been lenient” when indicating to the judicial rulings that have gone in the favour of Hizb ut Tahrir, he has returned once again to the style of Bourguiba that attempts to wipe out political opposition. That is in the case where he flouts the laws and the judgements of the judges and becomes reliant upon security militias and thugs, all of which reaffirms that he is behind the latest gross acts of aggression targeting the headquarters of the Hizb.

3. It appears that Hizb ut Tahrir has given Beji Caid Essebsi sleepless nights by disclosing the corruption of his policies and his serviced rendered to the colonialist companies of plundering. Therefore, you see him wanting to get rid of it and of every voice that is coming out from Qarqana, Qafsa of any other place from the regions of the country demanding its rights in respect to its natural resources and treasures.

We advise you in the future to consult your big official before launching an attack in this medieval fashion against a Hizb with roots that is known by the near and distant and the young before the old. That is because Hizb ut Tahrir is too famous and well-known amongst the people that would allow you to fabricate against it as it has been working within the Islamic Ummah for more than 60 years. It is now spread to more than 40 countries in the world and everyone knows that the colonialist forces fight against it and persecute its members. Tens of its Shabab have gained martyrdom in the prisons of the oppressors and yet it has remained steadfast and lofty all the time increasing its strength. Today, it is the closest it has been in respect to accomplishing the objective of the Muslims by the permission of Allah. And that the revolution that began in Tunisia and was picked up by the rest of the Ummah in record time in all of the Muslim lands will never stop by the permission of Allah except by the uprooting of colonialism and its agents from the lands, and the establishment of the Khilafah "Caliphate" State (Caliphate) upon the methodology of the Prophethood, just as our Noble Messenger (saw) gave us its glad tidings.

Media Office of Hizb ut Tahrir
in Wilayah Tunisia