25th July, 2013
Tunisian opposition politician Mohamed Brahmi has been shot dead outside his home in the capital, Tunis, reports say.
Mr Brahmi, 58, led the nationalist Movement of the People party.
It is Tunisia’s second assassination of an opposition party leader this year.
In February, prominent secular politician Chokri Belaid was also shot outside his house in Tunis. His murder sparked angry protests and prompted the resignation of PM Hamadi Jebali.
“Mohamed Brahmi was shot dead outside his home in Ariana,” state television and the official TAP news agency reported.
Gunmen on a motorbike killed Mr Brahmi in front of his wife and daughter on Thursday morning, Movement of the People party officials told local media.
It is not known yet who is behind the attack.
Mr Brahmi was a member of the National Constituent Assembly, which is drafting a new constitution.
He founded the Movement of the People party after the Arab Spring uprising ended the 23-year-rule of President Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali in 2011.
Mr Brahmi was not as big a political figure as Mr Belaid, but he too was a leftist critical of the governing Islamist Ennahda party, which came to power following Mr Ben Ali’s overthrow.
After Mr Belaid’s assassination in February, many Tunisians accused Ennahda of not doing enough to stamp out a rise in Islamist violence, with some critics saying the party was actively fomenting it, correspondents say.