Rights Vanessa Szakal 21 March 2018

Tunisia’s new regional administrative courts: What challenges lie ahead?

Just in time for long-awaited municipal elections on May 6, 2018, Tunisia’s 12 new administrative courts are finally up and running. Prior to the creation of these regional chambers, all complaints concerning violations and abuse of power by public authorities were filed with the administrative judiciary headquartered in the capital. Despite delays and funding constraints that have beleaguered their organization, a dozen new chambers and 60 newly-appointed judges have hit the ground running since they became operative on February 22 of this year. For in addition to its day-to-day litigations, the administrative judiciary has a pivotal role to play in ensuring the integrity of upcoming local elections.

Economy Vanessa Szakal 14 March 2018

American grains in Tunisia: can self-sufficiency be imported?

The National Agronomy Institute of Tunis has collaborated on several projects with the US Grain Council over the past decade. Now they are launching a new project in the country’s animal feed sector. On March 1, Minister of Agriculture Samir Taieb and US Ambassador to Tunisia Daniel Rubinstein convened at INAT to announce the creation of a regional training center for feed manufacture engineers and technicians. With the aim of improving feed and livestock production in Tunisia, the project promises to serve consumers but also farmers and feed manufacturers. The USGC is clear in its communications that the project also serves to promote American grains in Tunisia’s import-saturated market.

Environment Vanessa Szakal 28 February 2018

Hunting in Tunisia: Obsolete legislation, poor management and a lack of political will

In January 2018, the Lebanese Hunting Club posted a series of photographs displaying hunters smiling behind their spoils, hundreds of birds downed during a trip to Tunisia. The images suscitated a wave of outrage by conservation groups not only for the way that the group advertised their copious kill, but for the fact that hunting of this scale is permitted under current legislation. On paper, regulations in the sector were designed to conserve biodiversity and ecosystems. To what extent do today’s hunting practices, quotas and implementation live up to this role?

Rights Vanessa Szakal 23 February 2018

Constitutional Court: consensus blocked it, consensus to move it forward

In parliament this week, deputies fixed the date on which they will elect the first four members of Tunisia’s Constitutional Court. Long held up in the selection process, the assembly now has less than a month to approve candidates before voting on March 13, 2018. Four years after the adoption of a new Constitution and three years after passing the organic law concerning the Constitutional Court, deputies have been under mounting pressure to establish the unique authority with the capacity to ensure the constitutionality of the laws. Consensus is at once the main cause of delays and also the solution of last recourse. At this late phase, will it enable them to move forward?

Rights Vanessa Szakal 12 February 2018

Violence against women: New Tunisian law in effect, will it be effective?

Tunisian legislation adopted in July 2017 to eliminate violence against women finally went into effect on February 1. Organic law n˚2017-58 of 11 August 2017 amends certain discriminatory provisions of the penal code and requires State institutions to develop a coordinated approach to prevention as well as assistance and support for victims of violence. The adopted text is the culmination of numerous drafts and a years-long struggle by a few civil society associations. Now that the legal means are more or less in place, the question is how, and with what means, to implement anticipated reforms?

Culture Vanessa Szakal 03 February 2018

Interview with Habibi Funk in Tunis

On the closing evening of the Goethe Institut’s Geniale Dilletanten in Tunis (January 20-28), the expo’s downtown venue was packed for a DJ set by Habibi Funk. Berlin-based Jannis Stürtz, co-founder of Jakarta Records, began younger music project Habibi Funk which revives long-forgotten or little-known songs of the 70’s and 80’s from Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco, Egypt, Sudan and Lebanon. As he gets set up for the evening mix, the man behind Habibi Funk experience talks to Nawaat about the travel, research, elbow-rubbing and ethical considerations that feed the project.

Politics Malek Lakhal 27 January 2018

Interview with Hamza Meddeb: “The system keeps youth at the margins of society”

Tunisian political science scholar Hamza Meddeb published in 2015 “The state of injustice in the Maghreb: Morocco and Tunisia”. In one of the book’s chapters called “Waiting as a mode of governance in Tunisia”, he analyses the ways in which the Tunisian government diffuses social conflicts by inciting protestors to be patient and wait. At a moment when such manoeuvres seem to be reaching their limits, Nawaat sat with Hamza Meddeb to discuss the current protests. Interview.

Economy Sami Ben Gharbia 19 January 2018

An outsider’s look at the January 2018 protests in Tunisia

Nawaat addressed two questions to five foreign researchers who have written extensively about Tunisia’s politics and are familiar with the country’s particularities and complexities. It is a humble attempt by Nawaat to provide our readers with an outsider look that goes beyond Tunisia’s mainstream narrative, the polarized discourse and recurrent repression that accompanies every social movement.

Politics Vanessa Szakal 13 January 2018

“Fech nestannaw” anti-austerity protests continue in downtown Tunis

Friday, January 12 marked just over a week since protests broke out against the increased prices introduced by Tunisia’s 2018 budget. Unlike previous periods of contestation since the 2011 revolution, demonstrations in at least 18 regions across the country over the past week have been characterized by heightened tension leading to confrontations between protesters and security forces. Friday’s demonstration in Tunis, strained but peaceful, coincided with the court date of Ahmed Sassi, one of many campaign activists who has been arrested since January 4.

Politics Samih Beji Okkez 12 January 2018

Map of protests: increased prices galvanize streets across Tunisia

Protests against the 2018 finance law, which began within parliament and media outlets long before hitting the streets, provoked tension around the approved increase in prices. Tunisians, already fed up with the repercussions of a prolonged economic crisis, have turned out into the streets. A new wave of protest movements began in January, and quickly turned into confronta-tions between protesters and security forces in 18 governorates. Clashes culminated on Monday night with the death of the first protester in Tebourba, just outside of the capital.

Politics Vanessa Szakal 05 January 2018

Tunisia in 2017: The divide between local struggles and government policies

If many had hopes that 2017 might hold answers to the social and economic demands of the revolution, those hopes were short-lived. Tunisians faced an increasingly grim economic situation with an 8% drop in the value of the dinar and unemployment at 15.3%. The country’s long-awaited municipal elections, promising decentralized governance, are postponed until May 2018. Several months after the Prime Minister declared a « war against corruption », parliament passed the “reconciliation law” pardoning administrative officials implicated in economic crimes under the former regime. As much as resistance to changing old ways persists, protest movements represented a dynamic social force in 2017.

Rights Vanessa Szakal 29 December 2017

Detainee rights and Law 5: When practices don’t follow legislative reforms

In November, Lawyers Without Borders (ASF) and the Tunisian Bar Association (ONAT) launched a campaign to speed up the implementation of legislation intended to protect the rights of detainees. It has been almost two years since parliament voted to reform Tunisia’s penal code through the adoption of Law n°5-2016, known more simply as Law 5. And yet statistics and testimonies indicate that misconduct by officials and human rights abuses committed in police stations and detention centers remain commonplace. What will it take for old practices to be replaced by the procedures set out in the new legislation?

Culture Vanessa Szakal 25 December 2017

In a town where « nothing has changed »: Documentary Film Festival of Redeyef

This year’s Documentary Film Festival of Redeyef (RFDR) takes place December 20-24, in the town whose name is almost synonymous with Tunisia’s phosphate industry and its deleterious effects on the surrounding populations and environment. Although the mining basin revolt of 2008 is considered a precursor to the Tunisian revolution in 2011, in 2017 residents affirm without hesitation that here in Redeyef, « nothing has changed ». Now in its fourth year, the RFDR, funded by the Rosa Luxembourg Foundation, is pushing to establish a perennial film festival here, a so-called difficult terrain that is parched for sustainable cultural outlets.

World Vanessa Szakal 19 December 2017

American aid: In spite of Trump’s cuts, Congress bets on Tunisia’s “success”

How much will US Congress carve out for Tunisia in 2018? The jury is still out, and even though the fiscal year began October 1, Washington has yet to approve the new budget, including foreign funding amounts. An article* published earlier this month on The Hill urges senators to remember Tunisia while finalizing the budget for the coming year. « Tunisia is an American ‘soft power’ success story—let’s keep it that way », the author writes, arguing that with US foreign assistance « there is reason to believe that the rule of law and democratic institutions will prevail », whereas cuts in funding to the country would represent « a serious mistake ».

Environment Vanessa Szakal 04 December 2017

Celebrating Mouled : Harvest season begins in Tunisia’s Aleppo pine forests

On December 1, Tunisians celebrated the birth of the prophet Muhammad with assidat zgougou, a pudding-like dessert garnished with nuts, dried fruits, and candies. For one day out of the year, families savor this uniquely Tunisian treat made from zgougou, seed of the Aleppo pine tree that grows abundantly throughout the Mediterranean. With some 360 thousand acres of Aleppo pine forest in Kasserine, Siliana, Kef and Bizerte, Tunisia is the only country where the tree’s black-grey seeds are harvested for human consumption.

Society Hammadi Lassoued 22 November 2017

“Skadra”, a short documentary by Nawaat

Mohamed Aziz Khlifi, 16 years old, is from the delegation of Bir Lahfay in Sidi Bouzid. Walid Lahmar, 27 years old, is from Bir Ali Ben Khelifa in Sfax. Mohamed Ali Ferjani, 32 years old, is originally from Chneni, Gabes. The three of them were on board a boat to cross illegally from the coast of Kerkennah to Italy on October 8, 2017. These are three survivors of the collision with a Tunisian military ship. After the “Skadra” incident, they have returned to the reality they had set out to escape.

Environment Vanessa Szakal 20 November 2017

Zabaltuna: Bringing orientalist figures back to life in Tunisia’s dirtiest landscapes

A buxom young woman steps lightly from the water, carrying a jug at her hip and holding her sefsari above her head. Hooped earrings hanging down to her throat, bangles on her wrists, gold coins across her chest. She emerges, barefoot onto a muddy shore strewn with—red bottle caps, a packet of Camel blue cigarettes, empty plastic bottles. A fare 18th century maiden in a most unlikely environment. The scene is one of many diffused via Zabaltuna, a digital campaign that denounces Tunisia’s waste management problem, an increasingly noxious environmental and public health issue especially since 2011.