We are delighted to announce a new reporting partnership between Meshkal & Nawaat.
Qalb Tounes and Al-Karama confess their love
On September 5, after months of flirting, the Al-Karama parliamentary coalition announced its alliance with the Qalb Tounes party. The two parliamentary blocs finally decided to confess their love in a joint vote of confidence for Mechichi’s government.
Digitizing the Corner Shop’s Supply Chain in Tunisia
Many Tunisians buy their goods from small shops. But before those goods reach local shops, they pass through a series of middlemen who shape the final price. In the groceries sector, this includes wholesalers and “dawarjis”—independent transporters with vans who buy goods from wholesalers and sell them to small retailers. A new startup is trying to sell an alternative supply chain system using online tools, but many prefer the way business is done currently.
Abir Moussi: A Progressive, You Say?
With opposition to political Islam as her hobbyhorse, the former RCD member and current president of the Free Destourian Party (PDL) Abir Moussi has become the figurehead of opposition to Ennahdha. This positioning on the political chessboard has resulted in a meteoric rise. But is she really opposed to the Islamists’ social vision? Is she really progressive?
Tunisia : Bringing an end to Personal Status
A hostage to its « sacro-patriarchal » paradigm, Tunisia’s Code of Personal Status has become a glass ceiling—blocking women’s access to full and complete citizenship and preventing them from enjoying all of their human rights—in a society where the demand for equality between men and women presents a permanent threat to a public order that is gendered.
Call for projects: Innawaation – creative media projects incubator
In efforts to develop its multimedia platform, Nawaat.org is opening up to creative forces in the domains of art and technology in order to offer more innovative content. We are calling on artists, multimedia technicians, developers, web architects, designers and, of course, journalists to join in our efforts.
Irregular migration: a family undertaking
Migratory waves often coincide with the failure of social movements to achieve their objectives. A recent report notes a spike in clandestine migration that correlates with failed protest movements in the Gafsa mining basin and in Tataouine. « Irregular migration has become a form of collective protest », observes sociologue Khaled Tababi. A form of protest in which women are increasingly taking part.
Inside Beity: Single mothers, scarred and dreaming of autonomy
Some 715 out-of-wedlock births were reported in 2019, according to the annual report on the activities of childhood protection officers. The majority of these births (44.33%, or 317 births) took place in the central-eastern part of Tunisia. What is the fate of single mothers in a society that ostracizes them? Nawaat went to meet three of these young mothers at Beity, a shelter that offers assistance to women in distress and victims of violence.
Publication of IVD report : a second wind for Transitional Justice in Tunisia
Since 2014, the Transitional Justice process led by Tunisia’s Truth and Dignity Commission (Instance Vérité et Dignité, IVD) has been anything but steady. After a mandate of nearly five tumultuous years, the IVD completed its task in 2019 with the referral to court of at least 173 cases of serious human rights violations and corruption. It also published a comprehensive report including its findings and recommendations. Today, the report was finally published in the Official Gazette as required by Transitional Justice Law.
Covid-19, Private Education: A government disengaged and parents left to fend for themselves
The Covid-19 crisis unveiled inequalities in Tunisia’s educational system, not only between public and private education, but within private education itself. With an unregulated private sector and students’ parents left to fend for themselves, the crisis also revealed the government’s disengagement from its role as regulator.
«Operation Carthage»: Nabil Karoui and lobbyist Lotfi Bel Hadj busted by Facebook
« Disinformation as a service » is how the Atlantic Council described the services provided by Tunisian digital communication agency UReputation to presidential candidate Nabil Karoui during his campaign for Tunisia’s 2019 presidential elections. On June 5, the American think-tank published an investigation carried out by its Digital Forensic Research lab (DFRLab) which exposed the collaboration. Dubbed « Operation Carthage », UReputation’s activities targeted 10 African countries to the profit of four politicians running for president in their countries’ elections. Yet another affair revealing Karoui’s dubious practices, who owns UReputation, the Tunisian PR firm with such global influence?
Tunisian Politics and the Theory of Group Polarization: The Beginning of a Two-Party System?
Almost ten years after the Revolution took place, however, the new political scene that has since emerged in Tunisia is creating social friction and a division amongst Tunisians. This article attempts to provide an analysis of this prevalent social friction based on the theory of group polarization, while shedding a special light on the current political events that are shaping Tunisian domestic affairs.
Confinement: Rush for psychological support, the experience of A7kili Center
Modern decor, open space, young people bustling about. Nothing here would seem to indicate that this is a psychologial care center. And yet the A7kili Center is just this, dedicated to helping individuals in distress. Since the beginning of confinement, the center received about 400 calls a day—sign of a real need for psychological support.
Souk Sidi Boumendil: Survival by deconfinement
A sea of cars fills the street from Bab Alioua to Bab Jazira. Dozens of people carrying plastic bags are on the lookout for available taxis which are few and far between. The closer one gets to Boumendil, the thicker the crowd becomes. In this souk, a hub for contraband, life is returning to normal as Aid draws near. But the threat of Coronavirus hovers all along this street that is teeming with foot traffic.
The sexual life of Tunisians during confinement
With touching and kissing banished from daily life and physical distancing encouraged, Covid-19 has not only taken its toll on social but also intimate relationships. Whether living under the same roof or separated by the restrictions that confinement imposes, couples are forced to navigate all the uncertainties that Coronavirus brings—health-related, psychological and, by extension, sexual.
Egyptian authorities must stop harassing Lina Attalah
Lina Attalah, Mada Masr’s editor in chief, was arrested on Sunday May 17, 2020, outside the Tora Prison complex in Cairo. Law enforcement officials informed her colleagues that she will be held overnight and will appear before the prosecutor tomorrow morning. Attalah was arrested while she was interviewing Laila Soueif, the mother of imprisoned activist Alaa Abd El Fattah, who had been on a hunger strike for 35 days. She was released on bail later in the evening.
Covid 19 in Tunisia: Legal clarifications regarding the « protective masks affair »
During his hearing before parliament’s Administrative Reform Commission, Tunisian Minister of Industry Salah Ben Youssef presented his excuses to the Tunisian public due to suspicions surrounding a project to manufacture two million protective masks in which a parliamentary deputy was implicated. How to shed light on the affair? And how have parliament and control structures reacted?
Covid-19 in Tunisia: Tensions arise between municipalities and central government
Since the announcement of the first cases of Coronavirus on March 2, 2020, Tunisia’s government has taken measures to slow down the epidemic— the curfew, general confinement and telecommuting for certain sectors. Despite their importance at a national level however, these measures do not call into question the responsibility of local authorities in preserving citizens’ health. A responsibility that follows the principle of administrative freedom stipulated in the Code of Local Collectivities. But to what extent have local authorities fulfilled their role in preventing the spread of the virus? Have conflicts arisen with regards to the government’s prerogatives and the powers conferred on the municipalities?
