The Tunisian Association of Democratic Women (ATFD) on Tuesday strongly condemned the murder last Friday near Paris of the French teacher, Samuel Paty calling the act, committed in the name of religion, odious and barbaric.
The ATFD expressed, in a press release, all its solidarity with the family, friends, colleagues and students of Samuel Paty paying tribute to the community of teachers, whose primary mission must be to awaken students to reflection collective, debate, critical thinking and meeting others, essential conditions for the development of knowledge and emancipation.
In addition, ATFD reaffirms its attachment to freedom of expression, a necessary condition for emancipation, as well as its rejection of extremist and obscurantist logic.
“As feminist activists, we feel all the more concerned by this despicable act that we had, in our own country, to defend, against all odds, the school as a place of openness to all. knowledge and training of future free and enlightened adults. and to refuse that it becomes the battleground of authoritarianism and terrorism ”, read the press release.
The ATFD reports that this is how several Tunisian teachers have been harassed and threatened, in the name of religion and moral order, for having defended an active pedagogy that encourages openness, tolerance, reflection collective and critical thinking.
To this end, the ATFD stresses the need not to give in to the threats weighing on freedom of expression and educational freedom and calls for continuing to fight to make school a place of construction, learning, opening to the lights and a real bulwark against obscurantism.
The ATFD also takes this opportunity to warn against the rise of populist discourse that stirs up divisions and hatred instead of thinking about comprehensive solutions and calls for avoiding any instrumentalisation of this tragedy.
“We hope that this heinous assassination is not an opportunity for the powers and reactionary forces to sow the poison of stigmatization of Muslims, amalgamation, division and racism, which will have no other effect. than to put part of the population on the bench and fuel radicalization and terrorism, ”the statement added.
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