30 Mar 12 | Middle East and North Africa
“Our theatre is the street,” said Nasreddine Ben Maâti, President of Eich el-Fan (“live the art” in English), a young association dedicated to street art. “Tunisian citizens are boycotting theaters and cinemas so we decided to go for the people instead of them coming to us,” he added.
Their goal is to tour Tunisia and perform in the streets of the interior and marginalised regions, where the wave of protests that toppled the 23 year rule of President Zeine el-Abidin Ben Ali began.
On 22 March, the association organized an artistic event named Occupy Bourguib Art Street on the capital’s main avenue (Habib Bourguiba Avenue). It was not long before police intervened to disperse the young artists playing music, dancing and drawing graffiti. “Two police officers came toward us and asked us to leave, they were saying what we are doing was prohibited, and told us to go home”, Nasreddine told Index. “They only know two expressions: it is prohibited, and go home”, he added.
The artists refused to leave, and police used to tear gas to disperse them. A photographer who was filming police physically abusing an artist drawing graffiti on the floor was arrested and held for one hour. In the police station, he was beaten by four police officers, according to the association.
On the same day, Wissem Khemiri, a graffiti artist and member of the association Live the Art was taken to a police station when a general in the army spotted him drawing graffiti on the wall of a Tunis art school. The content of the graffiti seems to have irritated this general and opened some old wounds: Khemiri’s drawing was dedicated to Abd el-Aziz Skik, an army general who is believed to have been murdered following an order from former President Ben Ali. Khemiri was suggesting that some figures in the army collaborated with the former regime to kill Skik — on the graffiti, he wrote “the betrayed general”. He was freed the same day of his arrest, but the army general who arrested him accused him of “assaulting the dignity of the national army”.
The struggle of artists who choose to perform in the streets did not end there. On 25 March the Tunisian Association for Art Graduates, in collaboration with Live the Art and many more associations organised a cultural manifestation named “the People Want Theatre”, to celebrate World Theatre Day.
Tunisian artists and actors who gathered outside the capital’s main theater to take part in the event were assaulted. This time, however, the assaulters were right wing extremists, and the events occurred under the eyes of police.
“Police officers were watching, they only intervened four hours later,” said Lobna Noomene, a singer who witnessed the incident .
A Salafi extremist hit her on her head while she was rushing to get inside the theatre. “It is not the physical assault that hurts, but what really hurts is how someone has the courage to unfairly assault someone else ,” she told Index.
Artists in Tunisia have fears about the rise of ultra-conservative forces that seek to ban art works that they deem insulting to the values of Islam. On 26 June 2011, ultra-conservative protesters attacked a movie theatre that was airing Neither God nor Master, a film by Tunisian director Nadia el-Fani. The film’s name was later on changed to Secularism by God’s Willing. Meanwhile, the CEO of Nessma TV is currently on trial over the airing of the French-Iranian film Persepolis.
For Noomene, the ministries of interior and culture are to blame too. She explains:
For Salafists, everything is haram [forbidden]. But, the Interior Ministry should take responsibility for what happened, it should not have allowed for two events that are ideologically antagonist to take place in the same location on the same time. Meanwhile, the Ministry of Culture is out of touch with the artist, it does not have a real project to ensure the safety of artists, and it did not take a real position for what happened. But we will not put an end to our shows, and our manifestations. We will not stop living.
29 Mar 12 | Index Index, Middle East and North Africa, minipost
A Tunisian journalist was physically attacked after being ejected from a political meeting last week. Al Jazeera journalist Lotfi Hajji was officially invited to a meeting on 24 March which brought together several political parties, but was ejected after some participants complained that he had a different political approach. The microphone which was being used to record the meeting was reportedly stolen and destroyed. After he was forced to leave the meeting, Hajji was severely assaulted.
27 Mar 12 | Middle East and North Africa
Living in a conservative society, where homosexuality is illegal, the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender community in Tunisia faces enormous pressures. Gays and Lesbians in Tunisia often keep quiet about their sexual orientations, and it is challenging for them to freely express themselves.
The 2011 uprising has had little effect on the status of the LGBT community. It has nevertheless allowed them to express themselves via Gayday Magazine, the first magazine dedicated to gay issues in Tunisia.
“It was difficult to have such venture prior to the revolution due to censorship. Key words used on the magazine could be easily picked up by the censor’s filters”, said Fadi Krouj, editor in chief of the magazine, who prefers not to use his real surname.
The magazine which was launched in March, 2011, seeks not only to combat homophobia, and offer support to the LGBT community in Tunisia, but also aims at bringing change at the legal level.
“Among our main objectives are abolishing the law criminalizing homosexuality and drafting another one that criminalises discrimination and homophobia”, explained Fadi to Index. The magazine has received threats in the shape of emails and Facebook comments. He adds:
“They claim that gay rights are not among the demands of the revolution and that we are opportunists. The last thing we want to do is distract the nation from achieving its democratic transition. We just want to make sure that we will have a place in the new Tunisia, because we’ve had enough with living in closets
Though there is still a long way to go for the LGBT community in Tunisia, Gayday magazine can be considered as a step forward. Silenced for so long, this community now has the opportunity to express itself freely, at least for the moment.
14 Mar 12 | Digital Freedom, Middle East and North Africa
Yesterday was Tunisia’s first National Day for Internet Freedom, the day also commemorates the death of cyber dissident Zouhaier Yahyaoui, who died seven years ago at the age of 37.
Via his website TUNeZINE, Zouhair criticised the corrupt and autocratic regime of former president Zeine El Abidin Ben Ali. Despite using a pseudonym Ettounsi (The Tunisian in English) he was tracked down and arrested on 4 June 2000 and a court in Tunis later sentenced him to two years in prison for “publishing false information”, “non-authorised use of an Internet connection” and “theft from an employer.”
In November 2003, as a result of international pressure, authorities granted him conditional release but Yahyaoui had already spent 18 months behind bars. He faced serious health issues after suffering torture and abuse during his imprisonment and on 13 March 2005 he passed away following a heart attack.
Yahyaoui won numerous international awards for his fight for net freedom. In his memory, and in recognition of his cyber activism, and his sacrifices for a more democratic Tunisia, 13 March is now the National Day of Internet Freedom in the country.
Since the 2011 uprising, Tunisia has come far when it comes to net freedom. Netizens are enjoying an uncensored web, and they are free to say whatever they want without fearing any government censorship, or repression. Restrictions on launching websites and obtaining domain names have also been loosened. But Tunisia is still “under surveillance” on Reporters Without Borders’ “enemies of Internet List”.
Indeed, a military order issued in May, 2011 demanding the filtering of Facebook pages criticising the army (the pages are no longer censored now for technical constraints), and the legal action taken to force the Tunisian Internet Agency (ATI) to filter pornographic content on the web have launched a heated debate about whether red lines should be drawn for net freedom. Earlier this year Tunisian President Moncef Marzouki said:
There should be red lines limiting freedom of speech…these red lines should not be used as pretexts for censorship…the lines should be debated and accepted by all
In an interview given to Index on Censorship, Moez Chakchouk, CEO of the Tunisian Internet Agency admitted that there have been demands to filter around 50 FaceBook pages for “defamation”, and for “spreading false information”.
While Tunisia celebrates its first national day for net freedom, the fight for an uncensored web seems far from over.
