Al-Hamdi to hold protest outside Tunisian constituent assembly

London-based Tunisian politician Hachemi al-Hamdi The leader of Tunisia's Popular Petition for Freedom, Justice and Development party, Hachemi al-Hamdi, said his party's representatives would hold a sit-in inside the Tunisian constituent assembly's headquarters , "in refusal of their restricion on expressing their views", while he called on civil society institutions for support.
The political leader made the statement after two of his party's members were expelled from the constituent assembly.
Mostafa Ben Jaafar, the president of the constituent assemby, on Monday expelled Eskandar Boualagui and Ayman al-Zwaghi from a general session discussing the cases of those who were wounded in the revolution and the implementation of the general legislative amnesty law.
Hamdi, who is based in London, said in a press release that his party was discussing "further legal protest steps".
Hamdi called on the country's political parties, the Tunisian Labour Union and NGOs, "to show full solidarity with the Popular Petition against the injustice imposed on its representatives, as preventing the Petition's representatives from expressing their views inside the constituent assembly and their expulsion should be considered as a crime against the assembly, the Tunisian people and the revolution's martyrs and wounded".
The assembly's leadership meanwhile issued a statement calling on all representatives "to commit to a reasonable approach in discussions, taking into account the critical period the country is going through, that requires maintaining unity, rather than concentrating on partisan conflicts that have nothing to do with the nation's interests".
The statement stressed that the assembly did not "differentiate between the representatives according to their politicla leanings" calling all parties "to rise above their petty political controversies, as the Tunisian people monitor the assembly's performance, expecting their representatives to be faithful to their sacrifices".
The statement accused the Petition's representatives of "disrupting other representatives' speeches...so the assembly's president was forced to act against them according to his legal duties, in order to maintain a quiet and democratic atmosphere for discussions".