Street artists under fire in Tunisia

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.


Tunisia: Al Jazeera journalist expelled from meeting, attacked

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.

Ministry of Interior bans protests on the capital’s main avenue

29 Mar 12 | Middle East and North Africa

The Tunisian Ministry of Interior has issued a ban on protests on Habib Bourguiba Avenue in Tunis, the capital’s main avenue. The ministry claims that it took such decision following complaints received from commercial and touristic businesses located on the avenue, as well as from citizens “over violations committed during some protests”.

“The Ministry of Interior has decided to prohibit protests, marches, and all forms of collective expression on the entire Habib Bourguiba Avenue as of the release of this communiqué”, said the ministry on 28 March.

The decision of the Ministry came few days after a group of Islamists calling for the implementation of Islmaic law gathered on the avenue on 25 March, not far away from a cultural gathering of Tunisian artists, and actors who got together to celebrate World Theater Day. The artists claim that they were assaulted by some of the Islamist protesters, something the Ministry of Interior denies. “During these two manifestations, no acts of violence were registered”, said the ministry in a communiqué released on 25 March.

The prestigious Habib Bourguiba Avenue, once a touristic and commercial attraction, turned into an epicenter of protests in January 2011 when thousands of protesters demanding the fall of the regime of Zeine el-Abidin Ben Ali assembled there. Right after the ousting of former President Ben Ali, a protest culture flourished all over the country, and Habib Bourguiba Avenue has been regarded as a symbol of rebellion.

Gayday Magazine: Tunisia’s first LGBT magazine

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.