A Tunisian nightclub has been shut down and a criminal investigation launched after a British DJ provoked fury by playing a remix of the Muslim call to prayer during a party.
Dax J, a British-born Berlin-based DJ, was playing on Friday as part of the Orbit music festival in the north-east town of Neubal when he dropped a track sampling the ‘Adhan’ — the daily call to prayer Muslims engage in five times a day.
A video widely circulated online over the weekend shows festival goers dancing to the tune, which drew the attention of authorities.
“After confirming the facts, we decided to close this nightclub until further notice” the town’s governor, Mnaouer Ouertani, told AFP.
“We will not allow attacks against religious feelings and the sacred,” he added.
Tunisia’s Religious Affairs Ministry also condemned the incident, declaring in a statement that “mocking the opinions and religious principles of Tunisians is absolutely unacceptable.”
Three people, including the DJ who is considered “in a state of flight”, and one of the festival organizers, were brought before the Hammamet court for “public indecency and “insult to good morals and morality,” a spokesman for the local prosecutor’s office said.
The club manager, meanwhile, is believed to have been detained for “violation against good moral and public outrage against modesty.”
Organizers of the festival apologized in a post on the event’s Facebook page on Monday, but refused to take responsibility for the offense.
“Dax J is English and played the track recently in Europe and did not realize it might offend an audience from a Muslim country like ours,” the organizers wrote, adding “it is unfair that 20 sec of music ruined it for an event of 2 days prepared for many months. We do not want to interfere in religious debates.”
Dax J also offered an apology on his Facebook page “to anyone who may have been offended by music that I played at Orbit Festival in Tunisia on Friday.”
He was forced subsequently to close his account due to the high number of death threats he received over the weekend.