In Tunisia’s capital, days before the November 23 presidential elections, the three candidates whose faces appear most frequently across media outlets and whose names are mentioned most often in conversation are Beji Caid Essebsi, Moncef Marzouki, and Hamma Hammami.
Polemical public figures who provoke protests upon their arrival or an outpouring of public response to their ideologies and work are as telling of the values and issues precious to Tunisian public opinion as they are of the controversial figures themselves.
In Tunisia, there is a great deal of skepticism regarding the competency and «responsible governance» of the interim government in juxtaposition with Tunisia’s international image as the ‘sole democracy in the Arab world’ as citizens sense that technocrats and politicians are incapable of rising above their own political and electoral trajectories to synchronise a unified, coordinated national response to aggression that is tantamount to a Palestinian holocaust.
Lawyers, academics, politicians, civil society, more than one-hundred fifty organizations, Tunisians and internationals were part of the movement to FreeAzyz Amami and Sabri Ben Mlouka: democratic transition demands that the misuse of judicial power inherent in police state be replaced by the precedence of an independent justice.
Thirty-one year old blogger and activist Aziz Amami was arrested yesterday, May 12, 2014 in La Goulette, a beachside neighborhood of the capital. Some time between ten and eleven o’clock Monday night, Amami and his friend, photographer Sabri Ben Mlouka, were purportedly pulled over and detained for the possession and consumption of marijuana.
480 out of 873 union members voted in the elections, presumably due in part to the absence of those who were prevented from attending the event because they did not have the obligatory member cards. Neither the Nawaat nor other online sources dwell on what would appear to be a significant administrative error…
Perusing the articles available in American media on Prime Minister Mehdi Jomaa’s visit to Washington, one is faced with the gradation of quality and specificity and attention to detail that exists among different news sources…one is reminded that The Washington Post is a reliable outlet for fluffy pieces about the US’ benevolent role in the so called developing world, for sweeping generalizations about terrorism, the Arab Spring, democracy, etc. Unsurprisingly, most US news sources follow in this line of reporting.
On February 9, 2014, The Times of India published a rather fascinating article. «Kolkata-born Riddhi Dasgupta, the 28-year-old chief draftsperson of British think-tank The Wilberforce Society, was a driving force in advising in the crafting of [Tunisia]’s new constitution.»
On Saturday, the National Union of Tunisian Journalists, with support from the Union of Culture and Information, organized a general press strike held on September 17 to “oppose attacks against journalists from authorities who are desperate to treat journalists as criminals on the basis of repressive laws,” according to a press statement.
Human Rights Watch : (Tunis, September 13, 2013) – Tunisian authorities should quash the detention of a prominent activist and […]
We, Participants at the NGO Forum in preparation of the 48th Ordinary Session of the African Commission on Human and […]
The Arabic Network for Human Rights Information (ANHRI) “strongly resented” Tunisia’s use of security in raiding the house of opposition […]
Peut-on qualifier aujourd’hui la Cyberdissidence et le journalisme indépendant sur internet comme le 5me pouvoir? Face au journalisme à la solde des régimes au pouvoir, nombre de journalistes ont failli à leur mission, et ceux qui y croient toujours sont empêchés par des lois liberticides ou le choix des rédacteurs en chefs. La main-mise du pouvoir et des lobbyistes qui sont à la tête de groupes de presse pose problème.
On October 20th, 2009, Zouhaïer Makhlouf, a Tunisia Human rights activist and correspondent of Assabil Online website has been arrested for publishing a video report online about the environmental pollution in Nabeul (Dar Chaabane El Fehri), a coastal town in northeastern Tunisia. […]
The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) today protested to the Tunisian government over the action of police who laid siege […]
At a press conference on May 4, Naji Bghouri, the head of the National Syndicate of Tunisian Journalists (SNJT), was prevented by pro-government journalists from finishing comments in which he mentioned of declining press freedoms in Tunisia. The episode showed that the regime of President Zine al-Abedine ben Ali had lost patience even with a body that it had helped establish in January 2008 to cut the grass out from under the feet of the country’s most critical journalists.
Foreign tourists know Tunisia for its sunny beaches, ancient ruins and one of the Arab world’s most liberal societies. But for Tunisians, life is a daily tiptoe through a minefield of political taboos enforced by a vast security apparatus and heavily censored media. Now the country’s drive to embrace the internet is giving Tunisians an unexected new outlet to challenge authority.
In the past few weeks, Tunisian authorities have tightened their grip on independent media. Among the government actions have been […]
