Nessma TV trial postponed to January 23, 2012

Trial of Nessma TV CEO Nabil Karoui, and two of this Tunisian private channel's members of staff, namely Hédi Boughenime, officer in charge of viewing, and Nadia Jamel, chairwoman of Image et Parole Association which dubbed the controversial film "Persepolis" into the Tunisian dialect, has been postponed to January 23, 2012. Opened on Thursday morning in Tunis, the hearing was delayed at the request of the defence and counsels for the plaintiffs. A quarrel erupted between the lawyers, some of whom wanted that the hearing be shot, in contravention with the law. Nabil Karoui and the channel's two employees are heard for a complaint lodged against them by more than 140 lawyers for "having harmed good standards of behaviour and sacred values" when Nessma TV aired last October 7, 2011 "Persepolis," especially one of the scenes of the film where God is personified, which is blasphemous in Islam. Nabil Karoui had apologised for that scene, but tension has never abated.