Berlin-based British DJ Dax J, who was charged with public indecency and offending public morality after he placed a remix of the Muslim call to prayer at El Guitone nightclub in Nabeul, Tunisia during an event associated with Orbit Festival, has been sentenced in absentia to a year in prison. After footage of Dax J playing the track was posted on social media, the nightclub was shut down.
“We will not allow attacks against religious feelings and the sacred,” the governor of Nabeul, Mnaouar Ouertani, said when the club was shut down.
Tunisia’s religious affairs ministry said, “Mocking the opinions and religious principles of Tunisians is absolutely unacceptable.”
Dax J, who already fled the country before the court case, offered his “sincere apologies to anyone who may have been offended by music that I played at Orbit Festival in Tunisia on Friday” on a Facebook post.
“It was never my intention to upset or cause offence to anybody,” he said.
After news of the conviction broke, Dax J posted on Facebook, “I wish to express my deepest apologies to anyone who has been offended by the music that I played at the Orbit Festival in Tunisia last Friday. I am incredibly saddened that anyone would believe that I played a track, featuring a 20 second vocal of the “Call To Prayer / Adhan”, for any reason other than its musicality and the beauty of the vocal.”
Organisers of Orbit Festival apologized earlier in the week on the event Facebook page, but did not accept responsibility for the playing of any offensive music.