(Ecofin Agency) - Mohamed Salah Ben Aissa (photo), Tunisian minister of Justice, was dismissed with no official reason. According to spokesperson for the government, the minister had apparently “issued some declarations which lacked seriousness”.

In fact, Mohamed Salah Ben Aissa has reacted to the sentencing of a young Tunisian man to one year in prison for homosexual practice, by declaring himself in favour of the repeal of Article 230 of the Penal Code which punishes sexual intercourse between persons of the same sex.

His comments led Tunisian president Béji Caïd Essebsi to declare himself against such a decriminalisation by asserting that it “would not happen”. “I refuse it”, he declared on the Egyptian television.