Tunisia: catch all

[AdamG]

The battles between Tunisian youth and the government are now being fought on the internet, as much as on the streets of the controlled North African country.

While activists accuse the authorities of hacking into e-mails, blogs and Facebook accounts, some are fighting back, launching cyberattacks against government websites in the same way that supporters of WikiLeaks had done last month.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/4a18b4d6-1...#ixzz1ArQ5nVJC

In this latest update, The Tech Herald will address the newest developments in Tunisia. The original story will start on page three. The first update can be found on page two.

http://www.thetechherald.com/article...stors-Update-2

[tequila]

The Tunisian government begins to crack.

HAMMAMET, Tunisia — The police on Thursday all but abandoned this exclusive Mediterranean beach town — haven to the capital’s rich and powerful — as rioters calling for the ouster of Tunisia’s authoritarian president swarmed the streets, torched bank offices and ransacked a mansion belonging to one of his relatives.

In the fourth week of protests sweeping Tunisia, violence escalated in the capital, Tunis, as well, where late in the afternoon crowds defied tanks and machine guns deployed around the central boulevards. Witnesses said several were killed, adding to a death toll already in the dozens. There were reports that a general strike had been called for Friday.

In a possible sign of divisions in the government, the Tunisian military withdrew from the capital later Thursday and interior security forces took their place in the streets. In the evening, the president, Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali, delivered a televised address in which he announced major concessions, saying that he had ordered some food prices cut and hinting that he would not run for re-election, The Associated Press reported.

The president fires his interior minister.

Successful police states don't appease demonstrators - they crush them, as in Iran. The Tunisian security forces don't appear to have the vicious brutality of the Iranian regime.

The first successful 'color revolution' in the Arab world?

Brian Whitaker and Arabist.net are providing excellent coverage in English, though I'd imagine our French and Arabic-speaking boarders have even better sources available.

[AdamG]

President Ben Ali gave a hastily scheduled televised address on Thursday night, his second in the past week, and this time he appeared rattled. He no longer blamed foreign terrorists or vowed to crack down on protesters. Instead, he pledged to give in to many of the protesters’ demands, including an end to the government’s notoriously tight censorship, but rejecting calls for an immediate end to his 23-year rule.

“I am telling you I understand you, yes, I understand you,” Mr. Ben Ali, 74, declared. “And I decided: total freedom for the media with all its channels and no shutting down Internet sites and rejecting any form of monitoring of it.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/14/wo...a.html?_r=2&hp

From two days ago

Jobless youths in Tunisia riot using Facebook

And what has helped to break the barrier of fear that kept Tunisian anger bottled up for so long? Social networks like Facebook, which have helped organize protests and fuel online rage across this North African nation.

Police have fired repeatedly on protesters. The government says 23 people have died in the riots — 21 in the last three days — but unions and witnesses say at least 46 have died. In the town of Kasserine, site of the bloodiest confrontation, police were reported to have killed a man carrying the coffin of a child.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110111/...unisia_riots_4

[AdamG]

Tunisian President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali has left the country, amid the worst unrest there in decades. The Arabic language network al-Jazeera says the speaker of parliament is temporarily in charge.

The president was reported to have boarded a flight out of the country Friday evening local time. The military had sealed off the airport and closed Tunisian airspace a short time beforehand.

A state of emergency was also declared earlier Friday, with public gatherings banned and security forces authorized to shoot violators.

http://www.voanews.com/english/news/...113607609.html

[AdamG]

Did Wikileaks and Twitter Cause Tunisia's Revolution?
http://gawker.com/5733816/did-wikile...ias-revolution

The First WikiLeaks Revolution?
http://wikileaks.foreignpolicy.com/p...nisia_protests

ANONYMOUS on Tunisia, beginning of January
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BFLaBRk9wY0

[davidbfpo]

After the rapid change of government I have amended the thread title and moved it to a different area i.e. geographical. The title was: ANONYMOUS vs. the Tunisian Government in the Media arena.

[davidbfpo]

Two very different articles - before - the change of governance. The first opens with:

In the end one never knows why it is that social conditions erupt into revolt. More often than not they do not. But still, there are a number of factors which might explain the current unprecedented protests.

Link:http://www.opendemocracy.net/rob-pri...%80%99s-enough

The second is rather more polemical, if not outrageous and starts:

Abolkacim Ashabi once wrote, "If the people one day decide to live, fate must answer and the chains must break." Bouazizi’s martyrdom may have triggered a popular revival, many now believe, which will ensure that it is only a matter of time before Ashabi’s prophecy is fulfilled.

Link:http://www.opendemocracy.net/dyab-ab...ple-and-beyond

[Wiss]

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/4a18b4d6-1...#ixzz1ArQ5nVJC

In this latest update, The Tech Herald will address the newest developments in Tunisia. The original story will start on page three. The first update can be found on page two.

http://www.thetechherald.com/article...stors-Update-2

we (As Tunisians) will ensure that won't happen. Yesterday new mayors were appointed and some of them are from RCD. Everything should be done for their withdrawall. It is far from being an easy task. We will stay awake and eradicate them because they dont even have an ideology. They are only "power"

[davidbfpo]

Much has happened in Tunisia since the last post, thirty months ago! So for updates try the BBC country profile:http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-14107241

Today, AST was designated as a terrorist organization. AST being the salafi-jihadi organization Ansar al-Sharia in Tunisia:http://thewasat.wordpress.com/2013/0...ia-in-tunisia/

[davidbfpo]

Tunisia often slips out of sight, but last week a national assembly agreed on a constitution:

Surrounded by the pressure of Islamists and civil activists, Tunisia’s deputies have managed to achieve something unique in the Arab world: making the parliament the centrepiece of political discourse and power. The failure of Egypt – as perverse as it might sound – was another factor that strongly contributed to Tunisian success.

Link:http://www.opendemocracy.net/arab-aw...ian-parliament

[davidbfpo]

A short Australian comment on the Tunisian success. Here is one passage:

What's more, the higher Islamic values of justice, equality and freedom are adopted in the constitution.


For instance, the state guarantees freedom of expression and freedom of conscience, an unprecedented principle in the Arab world. This is a profound break with tradition which makes religion a private matter; the crime of apostasy has no place. Also, several points of the constitution reinforce equality between men and women.

Link:http://www.lowyinterpreter.org/post/...LCC=567588596&

[davidbfpo]

A short NYT report by Carlotta Gall (author of a recent book on Pakistan), which starts with:

Tunisians often say the first uprising of the Arab Spring began not in 2010 after the self-immolation of a fruit vendor, Mohamed Bouazizi, but in 2008, when protests over corrupt hiring practices at the mines of Gafsa ran on for six months. It is a measure of the lingering challenges of Tunisia’s revolution that people here are still in revolt.

In the towns of Moulares and Redeyef, protests have idled the phosphate mines — a cornerstone of the economy — for much of the last three years.

Link:http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/14/wo...ines.html?_r=0

A comment by Prof. Paul Rogers, from a broader review of his:

One of the best journalists covering the region for a United States outlet, Carlotta Gall of the New York Times, writes a thoughtful analysis of the current mood in Tunisia where progress towards democratic governance is underway but those in power have little chance of meeting expectations. Tunisia has perhaps 30% of its young people unemployed, and they have virtually no prospect of getting work any time soon.

See:http://www.opendemocracy.net/paul-ro...-global-revolt

A short commentary that the security forces have learnt nothing:http://www.opendemocracy.net/arab-aw...ion-in-tunisia

[davidbfpo]

A short academic article on Tunisian foreign fighters, which after all come from the birthplace of the 'Arab Spring':

A surge of Tunisian jihadists into Syria tells much about the wider story of violence and politics after the Arab Spring.

Link:http://www.opendemocracy.net/opensec...-tunisian-3000

In a conversation this week about North Africa it was noted that Tunisia is being used as a refuge for those Libyans who can afford to leave and as a R&R place too for those who fight. There was speculation that for the jihadists Libya was a better prize than Tunisia, so violence there would be restrained. Mmmm.