North Africa fights fundamentalist tide: Charles Richards, Middle East Editor, describes how states in the region are grappling with an Islamic current that has penetrated all levels of society

THE postponement of the trial in Tunis of more than 100 people accused of threatening the security of the state has only suspended judgement on a trend sweeping North Africa and other areas of the Arab world: the confrontation between groups of various Islamic inspirations and established political regimes.

The trial of those accused of belonging to the clandestine network known as Talaeh al Fidaa is due to reopen today. Defence lawyers wanted more time to deal with a similar mass trial going on simultaneously. The other trial, of 171 people accused of membership of the banned Islamic Al-Nahda party and of conspiring to overthrow the state, was stopped on 21 July after defence lawyers asked for more time to study their briefs.

Defence lawyers have complained that the two cases have in common accusations of 'an Islamicist plot to overthrow the regime' and of 'attempted assassination' of President Zine Abdine Ben Ali. The prosecution maintains that the 'commandos of sacrifice' were originally a separate organisation but was later incorporated into Al-Nahda as its military wing.

Human rights groups in the US have focused on what they call the lack of safeguards for a fair trial in Tunis. They point out that these mainly civilian defendants are being tried in military courts. The three groups - Middle East Watch, the International Human Rights Law Group and the Lawyers' Committee for Human Rights - have stated that the court has not permitted medical examinations of defendants to assess whether they have been tortured to extract confessions.

The human rights charges are an additional irritant to the Tunisian authorities. Their main concern is how to contain the Islamic current. They, like their counterparts in Algeria and Egypt, have blamed outside forces, in Iran and Sudan, for financing and arming the groups.

While some of the accusations may have some basis in fact, they ignore the central factor: that most of these Islamic movements are home-grown, having fed on the social and economic disaffection of a whole generation of young people. They have left higher education to enter a society without the jobs and status which they feel is their due.

No two countries have reacted in the same way to confront the growing Islamic zeal. None has managed to find a satisfactory solution. The problem is most acute in Algeria. There, corrupt former leaders squandered the country's wealth. When times were good, they used the revenues from gas exports to maintain a welfare state, rather than investing in productive enterprises. With the economic downturn, these government hand-outs have been severely cut back. And militant Islam has reaped the harvest of discontent.

The Algerians have been at sixes and sevens. They moved quickly, perhaps too quickly, to liberalise from the dead hand of the old FLN, the single party which had ruled since leading the fight for independence against France. First they tolerated the Islamic Salvation Front, known by its French acronym as FIS. Then, when FIS was poised to win elections, these were called off. FIS leaders have since been arrested, charged, convicted and sentenced, and several thousand FIS supporters languish in Algerian jails.

The history of the Islamic world provides ample cases of groups or movements that have arisen and challenged the established political order seeking ways of returning society to more rigid Islamic purity. In this century, the Muslim Brotherhood first appeared in Egypt in 1928, and outbreaks of violence have erupted sporadically ever since. Following the assassination of the late Egyptian leader Anwar Sadat by Muslim extremists in 1981, President Mubarak has tried to defuse the Islamic current by co-opting the more moderate Muslim Brotherhood into government and isolating the extremists.

It is a policy which has bought time, but now is unravelling. The Muslim Brotherhood has shown that there cannot really be compromise with the non-Islamic regime of Mr Mubarak. More extreme elements have raised the temperature with a spate of assassinations.

On 8 June, Farag Foda, a leading critic of Islamist politics, was killed by gunmen outside his home. This followed the assassination by Islamic extremists in 1990 of Rifaat el-Mahgoub, the speaker of the People's Assembly, the second highest official hierarchy of the Egyptian state.

Foda's death provoked a nationwide crackdown. Since then, there have been attacks on both policemen and Coptic Christians in Upper Egypt. The security forces have imposed a curfew on the town of Dairut, near Assiut, after violent intercommunal clashes. At least 40 people have been killed in the area since March.

Now the gloves are off. Egypt has introduced tough legislation to fight against Islamic extremists. In some areas of society, the penetration by Islamic militants has already been considerable. The government permitted more Islamic programmes on TV and bowed to pressure from Islamic zealots to censor sensitive books.

The root causes of the Islamic challenge are various. Some are motivated purely by Islamic zeal, but other social and economic factors help fuel the movement. So long as politically corrupt, ideologically bankrupt and - though not in the case of thriving Egypt - economically broke states cannot offer a better life for their citizens, then the Islamic trend is going to expand with the simple if banal recruiting slogan, 'Islam is the Solution'.