Tunisia drafting new constitution with no reference to Islam

The legal expert charged with rewriting Tunisia’s constitution said Monday he would present President Kais Saied with a draft devoid of any reference to Islam, in order to confront Islamist parties.

The first article of a constitution adopted three years after the North African country’s 2011 revolution says it is “a free, independent and sovereign state, Islam is its religion and Arabic is its language”.

But Sadeq Belaid, the legal expert appointed last month to head the committee drafting the new constitution, told AFP that “80 percent of Tunisians are against extremism and against the use of religion for political ends”.

“That’s exactly what we want to do, simply by erasing Article 1 in its current form,” he said in an interview.

Belaid, 83, confirmed there would be no reference to Islam in the draft, which will be presented to Saied ahead of a planned July 25 referendum.