A portal on Islamic issues funded by the German Foreign Office has posted an article which marked the 26th anniversary of the Tunisian Islamist movement known as Nahada (aka Ennahda, Al Nahda), often associated with the Muslim Brotherhood, by observing that difficulties it has faced in recent years:
The Islamist Nahda movement in Tunisia has recently celebrated 26 years since its inception amid a difficult atmosphere related to its inability to transcend the restrictive corner it found itself in since the beginning of the nineties. Structurally, the organization within Tunisia remains paralyzed due to the tight security cordon placed on its members. Its political future awaits a general amnesty despite the many declarations issued by the movement expressing a readiness to abandon its past actions which constitutes some of the worst moments throughout its trajectory. The current Tunisian government has succeeded in eliminating a political rival the moment the organization expressed its desire to become involved in the political arena as a participating party. In this way the movement handed over to the authorities the golden opportunity to get rid of it or at least to lessen its threatening impact to political stability.
The article goes on to assert that the movement’s leadership in exile, led by Rashid al-Ghannushi, has been responsible for keeping Nahda alive:
If the political regime succeeded in great measure in limiting the movement and paralyzing its operations internally, it still failed to put an end to it largely due to the existence of its members outside Tunis and their congregation around its leader Sheikh Rashid al-Ghannushi, the iconic symbol of the movement, who continued to exercise an impressive draw.
Al-Ghannushi (multiple aka’s including Ghannoushi), who lives in London, can best be described as an independent Islamist power center who is tied to the global Muslim Brotherhood in one example by his membership in the European Council for Fatwa and Research led by Brotherhood leader Youssef Qaradawi. He has also appeared at numerous events organized by Brotherhood organizations in the U.S. and the U.K.