Arabian nightmare

In Abdallah Guech Street, a few hundred metres from the main mosque in the heart of Tunis’s old quarter, lies a red-light district which has thrived since the 19th century. Here the Ottomans legalised (and regulated) prostitution as they had in much of the rest of the Muslim world. Uniquely, though, in the Arab world, the tradition in Tunisia endured: every one of the country’s historic quarters boasts bordellos — even, most remarkably, Kairouan, Islam’s fourth holiest city after Mecca, Medina and Jerusalem. In keeping with Tunisia’s deep-rooted secularism and unprecedented championing of Muslim women’s rights, the prostitutes carry cards issued by the Interior Ministry, pay taxes like everyone else and enjoy — along with their clients — the full protection of the law

Or at least they did until last month’s Jasmine Revolution. But last week, faster than you could scream Allahu akbar, hundreds of Islamists raided Abdallah Guech Street armed with Molotov cocktails and knives — torching the brothels, yelling insults at the prostitutes and declaring that Tunisia was now an Islamist state.