06 Jun 12 | Middle East and North Africa
Tunisian graffiti artist Elektro Jaye was recently censored at the Tunis Pintemps des Arts (Spring of Arts), a modern contemporary art fair which exhibited more than 500 art works this year.
“One of the fair’s organisers Luca Luccattini literally told me that the state had put pressure on him to remove my posters”, Elektro Jaye told Index.
Lucattini, the fair’s director, told Webdo.tn that one piece by the artist has been taken down, but for administrative reasons rather than pressure from authorities.
The artwork in question (on the far left) features the star and crescent from Tunisia’s flag, along with the Christian cross and the Star of David. The images are combined with the phrase “La République Islaïque de Tunisie”, which translates as “The Islaic Republic of Tunisia”. Islaic is a play on words, “Is” being taken from “Islam” and “laic” from the French word for secularism, “laïque”.
“The idea suggested here is that the religious should not interfere with the state’s decisions, nothing more! In my posters there is only a message of peace, and tolerance,” says Elektro Jaye.
Tunisia has had a heated debate about secularism and Islamism, dominating political discussions in the months following the fall of Ben Ali. Many Tunisian artists did not hide their desire for a secular state, and have used their work to express their view that religion should be kept aside.
While Elektro Jaye was unable to display his work at the art fair, he eventually succeeded in having his work displayed.
“Aicha Gorgi suggested that I display my works in her gallery. Some scandalmongers have been suggesting that this was just a marketing ploy. This is totally wrong.”
22 May 12 | Middle East and North Africa
On 28 May Monatir Appeal Court is expected to issue a verdict in the case of two atheist friends Jabeur Mejri and Ghazi Beji. In March a primary court sentenced the two to a seven-and-a-half year jail term over the publishing of prophet Mohammedd cartoons.
Defense lawyers chose only to appeal on behalf of Jabeur Mejri, since Ghazi Beji has fled the country. “We would lose appeal if we defend him [Ghazi Beji] in absentia”, said Bochra Bel Haj Hmida, a defense lawyer, and a human rights activist.
To convict the two friends, Mahdia Primary Court employed Article 121 (3) of the Tunisian Penal Code, which states the following:
“The distribution, putting up for sale, public display, or possession, with the intent to distribute, sell, display for the purpose of propaganda, tracts, bulletins, and fliers, whether of foreign origin or not, that are liable to cause harm to the public order or public morals is prohibited.”
Anyone who violates this law risks a fine of 120 TND (76USD) to 1200 TND (760 USD), and a jail term of six months to five years.
Article 121 (3), adopted on 3 May 2001 as a way to tighten control over press freedom, was repeatedly used during the post Ben Ali era.
The controversial law earned Jabeur Mejri and Ghazi Beji a five-year jail term, and a 1200TND (760USD) fine for publishing content liable to “disturb public order”, and six months for “moral transgression”. The court also sentenced them to two more years in prison for “insulting others via public communication networks”.
The Court of First Instance of Tunis also used this law to fine both Nessma TV boss Nabil Karoui over the broadcast of French-Iranian film Persepolis, and Nasreddine Ben Saida, the general director of the Arabic-language daily newspaper Attounissia over the publishing of a front page photo of a Real Madrid footballer with his naked girlfriend.
“As lawyers and activists we are volunteering to defend Mejri, and Beji. This is our tool to combat abusive laws adopted during the Ben Ali regime. But it is the job of the legislative branch, that is the national constituent assembly, to amend such laws,” explained Mrs Bel Haj Hmida.
21 May 12 | Middle East and North Africa
Dictators do not like to be ridiculed. They fear bold political cartoonists. Ousted Tunisian President Zeine el-Abidin Ben Ali made sure that the few artworks of political cartoonists who dared to criticise his regime would not reach the masses. He did what any tyrant would do: he censored them.
For more than four years Seif Eddin Nechi, a young Tunisian cartoonist, has been using social media as a platform to mock and criticise various aspects of the Tunisian society and political landscape. It did not take long before the regime’s net censorship machine blocked access to his cartoons.
Nechi said: “During the Ben Ali era I used to criticise everything, but in a roundabout way to get around censorship. Once I started talking about internet censorship through my cartoons, I was censored”.
He added: “After 14 January 2011 [when the Tunisian revolution began], criticising national and political affairs has become a central theme in my cartoons, with a more direct tone”.
With the uprising and the fall of the Ben Ali regime, many of the red lines which once prohibited artists from revealing their talents were scrapped.
“When I was very young, I used to draw everything and anything (especially my professors), and this earned me several punishments! Due to the system, my interest in caricature art had gradually faded away, and I could only share my drawings with my closest friends,” says Adnen Akremi (alias Adenov).
But now, Adenov can make use of his sense of humour, his pencils and his character Le Rasta, who is always smoking a joint, to ridicule and criticise.
Adenov explained: “It is through him [Le Rasta] that I express myself. He is Zen-like and out of touch and this somehow helps him to hit where it hurts. Through him I try to criticise the Tunisian’s situation in a funny way (well not always funny). When my messages are similar to the majority’s, it is good, but I’m not seeking to be the spokesperson of a particular group or a political party”.
In one drawing, Mustapha Ben Jaafar, Tunisia’s constituent assembly President, is depicted as extremely angry, asking Le Rasta about the efficiency of joints: “Is your thing efficient?” he asks. Le Rasta answers:” I can guarantee that it is 100 per cent efficient. Take one before each assembly session”.
In another cartoon, Le Rasta sarcastically comments on the increase in gas prices and the trend of self-immolations: “Is this within the framework of fighting self immolation suicides?”
Like Adenov, Nechi also created his own character, Bakounawar. “Bakounawar almost always ridicules reality, laughs at everything, he rarely gets angry,” Nechi told Index. “I created him to express myself and to try to say what is on my mind in a quasi-ludic manner, while remaining serious at the same time. Bakounawar has adopted a more popular discourse (and not a populist one) to be more than ever by the side of average and poor Tunisians. Bakounawar chose Tunisian dialect as language, and popular humour. I’m aware that my caricatures are still far from those I want to reach because the platform that I chose (the web) is not accessible to everyone,” he explained.
Via Bakounawar, Nechi has expressed his support to Al-Oula, a weekly newspaper whose director spent seven days on hunger strike protesting at government policies of state advertisements distribution among newspaper. “It [Al-Oula] is not a newspaper worth five cents”, says Bakounawar in one caricature.
But why did these two young artists chose the art of caricature? An art which cost Naji al-Ali’s life, and almost cost Syrian political cartoonist and Index Award winner Ali Fezrat his fingers.
“The message of a caricature is more direct than any other drawing genres”, answered Adenov.
“It is the most ludicrous tool capable of popularising complex situations. Caricatures allow us to laugh at our own flaws…” replied Nechi.
“This art has a primordial role in the construction of the future of a freer Tunisia”, said Amine Lamine, founder of Graphik Island, a platform which seeks to promote the artworks of Tunisian artists at both national and international levels. “Popularising art and culture to make them more accessible, so as many people as possible have interest in them and take part in the building of a better Tunisia”, he added.
The booming of caricature art was crowned by the publishing of Koumik (Tunisian for “Cartoon”), a collective book of comics which brought together 14 rising Tunisian caricaturists. The first issue was published in October 2011, and other issues are expected and anticipated.
17 May 12 | Middle East and North Africa
Nebil Jridet, General Director of the Arabic-language weekly newspaper Al-Oula has ended his hunger strike.
Jridet spent seven days on hunger strike in protest at Tunisian government’s “unequal” distribution of state advertisements among newspapers. He accuses the government of allocating adverts according to “newspapers’ political affiliations”.
The director’s decision came after talks with Samir Dilou, Minister of Human Rights and Transitional Justice on 15 May. Dilou said: “the state advertisement issue is a just cause and requires all concerned parties’ efforts in order to come up with the solutions which would make the distribution of state ads among newspapers a transparent process”.
In exchange, a national conference addressing state advertisement matters will be held at the end of the month. The National Syndicate for Tunisia Journalists and the National Syndicate for Independent and Party Newspapers will head the conference.
“It will take much time and we are going through serious financial problems which might come in the way of issuing the newspaper in the upcoming weeks” Nebil Jridet told Index.
