Tunisia

Tunisian police arrested an imam after he delivered a sermon described as "insubordinate," the Interior Ministry said Wednesday, in the first high-profile arrest since the government began taking a harder line toward religious conservatives.After facing accusations that it has been lax in enforcing the law, Tunisia's moderate Islamist ruling party has been increasingly tough on ultraconservative Muslims known as salafis, some of whom have engaged in violence in in an effort to promote greater piety in society.On Monday, six men were convicted and sentenced to five years in prison for burning down a shrine to a Muslim saint on the outskirts of Tunis last October. Such shrines are seen as heretical by some ultraconservative Muslims.According to a brief Interior Ministry statement, the preacher was arrested Tuesday after he called some of his congregation at a mosque in central Tunisia's Sidi Bouzid province unbelievers and mentioned the government's hunt for al-Qaida-linked militants nea...

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