Tunisian filmmaker to participate in Tel Aviv seminar

The website of the French embassy  in Tel Aviv has stated that controversial Tunisian filmmaker Nadia el-Fany will participate in a forum on "Democracy and Religion" organised by the French embassy in the Habima theatre. El-Fany will give a lecture entitled "Women against Fundamentalism" on Wednesday, June 6, in the presence of a number of Israeli and French intellectuals and journalists, notably the French philosopher Pascal Bruckner and Rabbi Delfin Horviear , who is a member of the liberal Judaism movement in France, as well as Israeli historian Haviva Pedaiah. The session will be moderated by journalist Tamar Rotem. It is expected that this forum will discuss several problems including "religion in a society dominated by women" while it will "highlight what is faced by women's movements from the religious side, particularly with regard to the right to contraception and divorce". A number Facebook users criticised Nadia’s decision to go to Tel Aviv in order to participate in an event they consider helps "normalisation with the Zionist entity." Nadia, who has French citizenship, will screen her documentary film "No God, No Lord" which caused a huge controversy in Tunis last summer and led a number of hradline Salafists to attack the "Africa Art" cinema in which it was screened. A number of Islamist lawyers then filed a lawsuit against Nadia citing“the violation of Islamic values??" which pushed  her to decide to stay in France. She has not returned to Tunisia since for fear of prosecution. Nadia el-Fany had received an international secularism award which is presented annually by the secular republic committee in France, in recognition of her documentary "No God, No Lord” and her role in the dissemination of secularism.