Weld El 15, the young rapper, was sentenced to two years of prison for singing “policemen are dogs” (البوليسية كلاب) and convicted for public indecency and cop contempt. Is it that I do not understand the law? Or is it that these laws defy those of logic?
I will not relate the sentence to the government and the party in power, simply because the judicial branch is “supposedly independent”, and the interim government is not responsible for the already-existing Tunisian laws. So, let us be a bit rational and avoid “the affective free associations” that are substantially groundless.
My grievances to this sentence are of a purely objective nature. Let us consider the first charge: public indecency. In artistically-lay spheres, most Tunisians would be public indecency-convicts if the “publicly-decent” Tunisians decided to press charges against them! I would rather have a taxi driver who yells profanity at his customers jailed than a young amateur rapper. Moving to the second charge, which is cop contempt, I have the impression that those in charge of the case have never visited a university campus, or even gone out on a hike in the streets of Tunis. Most people who write insulting remarks about cops on the walls everywhere do not even know that what they are doing is graffiti, and sometimes do not understand for what do the initials in the infamous acronym that ornaments walls stand_ all they know is that they are insulting the police. Following this line, police-friendly Tunisians, if such a “species” exists, can press charges against the cop-contempt clan and have the majority of Tunisians jailed as well!
If I were to cut the satire and be serious, I would say that: first, the time to be served is exaggerated in comparison with other infractions; second, if the sentence is legally-correct, then it should have been passed onto other people who preceded Weld El 15 into “bestializing” the police on national TV*; and finally, if it is meant as a “monitory” verdict, to prevent future trivialization of the law, then it is a failed warning since it victimized Weld El 15 instead of incriminating him.
This being said, I would add that I do not support those who want to politicize the rapper and the case, nor those who wish to confer a “militant” portent upon the song and the singer. Anyone who listens to the piece of rap can notice that “cops are dogs” NOT for oppressing protesters, violating human rights, torturing political prisoners and harassing their families! According to the lyrics, the police owe their “canine nature” to arresting the rapper for drug use. So, by all means antagonize the two-year-jail-time sentence, attack our “selective” justice system, but do not try to force an activist trait upon a piece of “rapped retaliation” that Weld El 15 sang out of personal grudges.
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* I know well that 97% of national guard officers and policemen are decent…Then you have 3 or 4% of them who are monkeys.
Beji Caid Essebsi, Sep 6th 2011
Indeed, one can legitemately argue that the verdict is rather too harsh. But there is no need to turn the guy into a freedom fighter. I cannot find in any of the UN’s conventions anything called “freedom of drug consumption”. This leads me to another issue that plagues our streets. These Bob Marley wannabes who imitate that great singer AND thinker. (this is me shouting) BOB MARLEY STANDS FOR MORE THAN WEEEEDDDD !! For heaven’s sake stop this abomination !! Bob Marley is a whole theory and philosophy of life and simply a weed smoker. And the worst thing is that these fellows dont even understand his lyrics, they simply hear WEEEEDDD.
You have approved the jailing of the femen girls.
now you disapprove of wrapper jailing.
in both cases the act is a stand of discontent against non justice.
yosra u are selective when saying that tit exposure is done by a brainless
girls could u pin point what brain color do u have.
.4 months for tits
.2 years for dogs
.an embassy and a school destruction for free.
if u kill soldiers and cops is ok only if you are protected by a goat beard..
the ansar spokesman shit is among the persons claiming a civil case
against amina.
tell me yosra has amina got a brain cell?.according to your index of
intelligence measure.
what difference between tit waving or voice screeching both offend
a constitution that still have not been approved.
a dog is man’s best friend and now he is a goats best friend.
Son of Carthage: I have never said anything concerning jailing the femen girls; please recheck your information. I only deconstructed their distorted “mammary activism” with purely FEMINIST arguments. Please, try to be consistent, impersonal, and lucid in your criticism. I do not speak for anybody or anything but myself, so just counter MY arguments not the prejudice you have apparently constructed with regard to me. Amina is of no concern to me, I have never even mentioned her name in any of my articles, because all I care for are concepts, phenomena, and analyses, NOT people. Thank you for calling me Yosr not Yosra :) and it is always a pleasure to receive your feedback :)
Yosr:my intent is not to be critical of you.
I prefer to encourage you in all your endeavours.
diverge thinking or alternative method of protesting shouldn’t be viewed as
an erreneous path tat’s the issue.
the steps we take should’t be the same for every one.
if tits or testicules are the weapons of choice meaning the mode of protest
than we shouldn’t discriminate.
the dogs can bite,bark in an enraged state and we want to lock their victims.
keep the good work yosr and don’t take it the hard way.
regards of the kindest:sc
I feel puzzled after reading Dridi’s article although I agree with her when she says at the end: I do not support those who want to politicize the rapper and the case, nor those who wish to confer a “militant” portent upon the song and the singer. I never considered Weld El 15 as a militant and never saw in his song anything political. I don’t consider him as a victim of oppression whose right of freedom of expression was violated. In his song he just exalts violence and calls for killing policemen by slaughtering them and cutting their throats or by shooting them dead. He also exalts the addiction to drugs and calls for boycotting education and study. Therefore I don’t consider him as an artist. He is just a thug and a singing thug is still a thug.
Like the few other supporters of Weld El 15 who prefer bashing the Tunisian justice rather than understanding the outrage of so many Tunisians who were horrified by the song, she cleverly avoids quoting the obscene lyrics. Therefore it is worth mentioning the incriminated text.
Weld El 15 speaks of Eid al-Adha, the major religious festival in the Islam, celebrating Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice his son as an act of submission to God’s command and says he will on that day slaughter a policeman by cutting his throat as he would do with a sheep. I would like to point out here that in some civilized countries animal rights activists oppose the Islamic and Jewish rituals of slaughtering animals by cutting their throat. They consider this as inhuman and cruel. What would they say about slaughtering a human being by cutting his throat, policeman or not policeman? Even if the singer calls the policemen dogs I am sure many people would shiver by listening to a song calling for cutting a dog’s throat. Who never heard of the horrifying videos put on internet by terrorists threatening to cut the throats of their hostages if governments don’t comply with their demands? Should Tunisian authorities tolerate songs exalting threats of the same kind? Do we need to swallow such barbaric songs for the sake of demonstrating that Tunisia has become a democratic country where you can say and do anything? Isn’t it the duty of the government to protect its officials who are daily exposed to great dangers and risking their lives in order to secure the safety of all citizens while some thugs try to spread anarchy and violence? Because of the fragile situation emergency laws were decreed and they are still in force. But despite that many police officers were killed by terrorists, thugs and looting mobs. Even the president and the speaker of the parliament were physically assaulted by a furious mob throwing all kinds of projectiles at them to prevent them from delivering a speech. If they weren’t rescued by the police, who knows if they still would be alive? A well-known politician was shot dead by unknown terrorists. This leads me to another text in the song where Weld El 15 says: Give me a gun and I will shoot and kill the policemen. With a gun in your hands you can shoot and kill anybody you don’t like. Guns and other fire arms are nowadays heavily smuggled into Tunisia from Libya since the fall of the Kadhafi regime. Which means that getting a gun is no more a problem. The same applies to getting drugs. On the Tunisian side of the border with Libya, heavy fighting erupted a few times between rival tribes and the security forces had to intervene to restore order.
I wonder how dare Dridi in the light of this tense situation write “If I were to cut the satire and be serious, I would say…”. I don’t see any reason for not being serious or for ridiculing or bashing the authorities by calling Tunisian justice [“selective” justice system] or by using understatements like “do not try to force an activist trait upon a piece of “rapped retaliation” that Weld El 15 sang out of personal grudges”. No grudge can legitimate or excuse exalting cutting throats and shooting policemen dead. You show no sense of responsibility by playing things down and being the devil’s advocate. Also when you compare insulting cops by writing graffiti on the walls with a song exalting cutting their throats or shooting them dead, this is nonsense. A text written on a wall will stay there on the wall and be only seen by a limited number of people in that area. A song put on internet or distributed on CD’s or by broadcasting reaches millions of people and could be interpreted by frustrated or mentally disturbed persons as an incitement to murder. And don’t tell me: the song won’t be broadcasted in Tunisia, because in that case you will accuse the Tunisian broadcast of censorship. He or she who wants to obstruct for the sake of obstructing will always find an excuse. He who wants to drown his dog accuses it of rabies.
Another poor excuse is the reference to a statement made by Caid Essebsi on national TV “bestializing” the police. Caid Essebsi was at that time interim prime minister. He got his mandate from the fraudulent parliament of Ben Ali which dissolved itself afterwards. But Caid Essebsi abused his authority by making such an insulting statement when he was commenting on a demonstration against him by a number of policemen. It was wrong that he could get away with it. It is also wrong to use his insulting remarks as an alibi to justify the threats of the thug Weld El 15. It is time to put an end to obscene insults and threats otherwise malicious people will continue using them as an alibi to undermine the state of law. By the way I never understood which evidence did Caid Essebsi have as to state that 3 or 4% of the Tunisian police were monkeys. I never heard of any statistics or studies about the subject. But it was clear that he didn’t lose the arrogance he had when he was for some 15 years head of the security forces or minister of internal affairs under dictator Bourguiba. At that time Bourguiba had erected special centers for torturing his opponents and cutting their throats as you can read in a book written by Bechir Torki, the pioneer of the Tunisian military intelligence. According to Tunisian historians no political activists died under torture during the colonial period in Tunisia but that started happening after the independence when Bourguiba confiscated the power. His acolyte Caid Essebsi was in charge of persecuting the opponents and arranging rigged elections which culminated in Bourguiba becoming president for life. In that period also, according to Yosri Dali, a former psychologist of the Tunisian police, Bourguiba ordered rape to be used for silencing his opponents. They were arrested and their wives were brought to prison to be raped under their eyes afterwards the men were raped under the eyes of their wives. At that time also Caid Essebsi was a prominent figure in the regime and in charge of the security forces. The song of Weld El 15 wasn’t written in that period and doesn’t refer to it. But even if it were the case two wrongs don’t make one right. Exalting cutting throats, liquidating police officers by shooting them and addiction to drugs instead of going to school is not what Tunisia needs. This has to be well understood.
Fathi: Granted the song is obscene and of a very violent content but this is typical of rap songs. Abroad “rapped profanity” gets familiarized because foreign swear words do not sound as offensive as those sung in the Tunisian dialect, and I personally got offended by the content of the song. But, my argument here is not about low counter culture, it is about the relative harshness of the sentence; at least I deemed it harsh. Please understand that I am not trying to indemnify the rapper but I am merely criticizing a sentence that created much turmoil without being efficient or egalitarian. Jail a Salafi over violent threats and she/he would not be heard of; but jail a would-be artist; and he would be “a human rights activist”. How about you jail them both, and anyone else, no matter how high his/her position is, who transgresses the law? That way, we would have something closer to justice in this country.
@ Yosr. You did certainly notice that I haven’t said anything about the harshness or the softness of the sentence. I don’t have the legal competence for that and even if I had it I wouldn’t interfere because it should be left to the lawyers. If we want to achieve having an independant justice in Tunisia we have to accept that principle and not try to intimidate our judges or put pressure on them by bashing them in the media. We shouldn’t interfere and the government shouldn’t interfere. We don’t know all the intricacies of the cases and we haven’t attended the dealings behind closed doors. You think the sentence is too harsh, but be sure: others would find it too soft. Whom should the judges please? I think they shouldn’t even give it a thought.
You, ma’am, win the Internet for today! #Respect
[…] for his lyrics, has released a new song and video in solidarity with detained Tunisian rapper, Weld El 15. Ala Yaacoub, who goes by the alias Weld El 15, was sentenced to two years in prison for […]
[…] Nawaat.org argues that Weld el 15 should not be politicized because his song, “The Police are Dogs,” is about their harassment of drug users, not about human rights. […]
Did he have the police on his back for drug use, or only for cannabis use?