TUNIS (AFP) - Police fired tear gas Friday at hundreds of people demonstrating against a private television station accused of blasphemy for airing a film with an image of God. The demonstrators, mainly Muslim, protested against Nessma television for the second time in a week after it broadcast "Persepolis", a globally-acclaimed animated film on Iran's 1979 revolution. The demonstration had begun peacefully at a central Tunis mosque after Friday prayers, with men and women chanting against Nessma. Traders shut up shop as the group approached government offices. Many of the women protesting were covered with an Islamic veil, brandishing copies of the Holy Quran, while many of the men were bearded and wore tunics. "We are demonstrating against Nessma, which broadcast scenes of blasphemy," said one protester of the film that describes the last days of the US-backed shah's regime and the subsequent revolution led by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeiny through the eyes of a young girl. The rally grew tense as protesters approached the Kasbah area of Tunis where the main government buildings are located. "Separate Mixing of men and woman is prohibited," shouted a man as divided the protesters. Police fired tear gas as a group of radical protesters approached the seat of the govt and pursued several demonstrators who had taken refuge in a local mosque.