DUSHANBE, July 14, 2012, Asia-Plus — On July 12, Tajikistan’s Islamic Revival Party (IRP) leader Muhiddin Kabiri, who is also deputy of the lower house (Majlisi Namoyandagon) of the Tajik parliament, attended the 9th congress of Tunisia’s ruling Islamist party, Ennahda, in Tunis on invitation of Ennahda leader Rached Ghannouchi, IRP’s headquarters in Dushanbe said.
Delivering a statement at the congress, Kabiri reportedly read out the complimentary message of members and supporters of his party. Kabiri noted that experience of the Ennahda Movement is unique and useful, the source said.
Representatives of political parties from some 100 countries of the world reportedly attended the Ennahda congress.
Founded in October 1990, the Islamic Revival Party of Tajikistan was registered on December 4, 1991. It was banned by the Supreme Court in June 1993 and legalized in August 1999. Its official newspaper is
Najot
(Salvation). According to some sources, IRP now has some 25,000-30,000 members. It won two seats in the 2010 parliamentary elections. The Islamic Revival Party of Tajikistan is the only Islamic party registered in CIS Central Asia.
The Ennahda Movement, also known as Renaissance Party (Arabic: Ḥizb an-Nahdah) or simply Ennahda, is a moderate Islamist political party in Tunisia. Established in June 1981 by Ghannouchi and a group of intellectuals inspired by Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood, Ennahda (Renaissance) was banned by Ben Ali after a major electoral success in 1989, and its leaders jailed or forced into exile. Ghannouchi returned in January 2011 after 20 years of exile in London. On March 1, 2011, after the government of Zine El Abidine Ben Ali collapsed in the wake of the 2011 Tunisian revolution, Tunisia”s interim government granted the group permission to form a political party. Since then it has become the biggest and best-organized party in Tunisia, so far outdistancing its more secular competitors. In the October 24, 2011 Tunisian Constituent Assembly election the party won 40% of the vote, and 89 of the 217 assembly seats, far more than any other party.
