TUNIS, Tunisia — The Tunisian government and a long-banned Islamist party denounced on Saturday the grisly slaying of a Roman Catholic priest, while several hundred people gathered outside the French Embassy in the capital to demand the recall of France’s new ambassador.
The 34-year-old priest, Marek Marius Rybinski, was found Friday with his throat slit and stab wounds in the parking lot of the religious school in the Tunis suburb of Manouma. The slaying of the Polish priest was the first deadly attack on members of religious minorities since last month’s ouster of Tunisia’s longtime autocratic president, Zine El Abidine Ben Ali.
The Interior Ministry said the killing appeared to be the work of a “group of extremist terrorist fascists,” judging by the way it was carried out, and it vowed that those responsible for the “odious crime” would be severely punished.
Also Saturday, at least 2,000 people, who were mobilized through the social media website Facebook, staged a peaceful demonstration in central Tunis to denounce extremism and call for tolerance. The Associated Press
