4 May 2012 | Egypt, Middle East and North Africa
Violent clashes between protesters staging a sit-in outside the Defence Ministry Headquarters in Cairo’s Abbasseya district and unknown assailants killed at least 20 people on Wednesday and left scores of others injured.
The violence began in the early hours of Wednesday when unidentified men in plain clothes attacked the peaceful sit-in —apparently with the aim of dispersing the protesters who had camped out there for several days.
Supporters of Salafist former presidential candidate Hafez Abou Ismail had marched to Abbasseya on Friday evening to protest his exclusion from the presidential race. They were later joined by other activists: mainly liberals and members of the 6 April Movement. They all demanded an end to military rule and a swift handover to a civilian government.
“What started as a peaceful demonstration has turned into a bloodbath,” cried Iman Mohamed, an activist who had joined the sit-in a couple of days earlier. She added that the assailants had fired gun shots and used Molotov cocktails and tear gas. Some of the protesters responded by hurling rocks and stones at the assailants, others engaged in fist fights.
“I saw several men wielding batons and another carrying a sword,” said Haytham Sallam, another protester who had arrived at the scene Wednesday morning.
“People dropped dead right in front of our eyes,” he added.
There was a brief lull in the early morning hours before clashes erupted again at 9am and continued for several hours. Most of the dead had sustained fatal head injuries or had been shot in the head. The attackers had also used bird shots and dozens of injured protesters were receiving treatment at a makeshift field hospital set up at the scene or in the nearby Demerdash Hospital.
Some protesters suspected that the assailants were security force members disguised in plainclothes. “How else would you explain the use of tear gas and bird shots?” quizzed Sallam. Others said the use of “thugs” to break up protests had become “an all-too- familiar tactic “ adopted by some elements in the government so that they would not directly take the blame for the violence themselves.
Military soldiers and riot police set up barricades around the area but most protesters said they had done little to break up the clashes or calm the situation. Seven political parties boycotted a meeting that had been called for Wednesday by the military council as rumours spread that the ruling SCAF was planning to postpone the presidential election scheduled for 23 and 24 May.
To allay concerns the Deputy Head of SCAF, General Sami Annan was quoted by Egyptian state television as saying the military was looking into transferring power to an elected president on 24 May (after the first round of elections) instead of at the end of June as had earlier been planned.
The announcement did little to quell public anger, as several protest marches to Abbasseya were organised later in the day by political parties and activists. Another million-person march has also been called for Friday by the Freedom and Justice Party to express outrage at the authorities’ response to the violence and pile pressure on SCAF to sack the government of Prime Minister Kamal el Ganzouri.
In another development, three presidential candidates have suspended their campaigns in honour of those who died in the latest wave of unrest.
Meanwhile back in Abbasseya, protesters issued fiery warnings to SCAF against any delay in the presidential election. ” If there’s any postponement, it will set off more unrest that would be difficult to contain,” warned activist Dina Nasr.
Journalist Shahira Amin resigned from her post as deputy head of state-run Nile TV in February 2011. Read why she resigned from the “propaganda machine” here.
4 May 2012 | Middle East and North Africa
Members of the IFEX-TMG gathered in Tunis for World Press Freedom Day to mark the launch of four new initiatives to support Tunisian rights to freedom of expression, which remains under threat despite the gains of the past year.
The new work includes a literary anthology edited by the president of PEN Tunisia Naziha Rejiba, a training manual on online advocacy, a workshop for cartoonists, and a national newspaper and billboard campaign championing free expression rights as Tunisia’ Constituent Assembly continues to negotiate a new national constitution.
With hundreds of press freedom campaigners in Tunis alongside the IFEX-TMG to attend UNESCO’s annual World Press Freedom Day conference, the timeliness of these events was underlined by the sentencing of two young Facebook users to lengthy prison sentences and the fining of the head of a TV station for broadcasting the award-winning film Persepolis.
“Things have improved since the fall of the old regime, but there’s no question that the right to freedom of expression in Tunisia is not yet secure or safe,” said Rohan Jayasekera from IFEX-TMG member Index on Censorship.
The anthology, Fleeting Words, edited by Rejiba, the veteran dissident best known as ‘Om Ziad’, is published in partnership between IFEX-TMG, PEN Tunisia and Atlas Publications. Now available in Arabic, French and English editions will be published in June.
The IFEX-TMG also launched a training manual on online free expression campaign strategy developed by the IFEX-TMG member, the Arabic Network for Human Rights Information (ANHRI), with local partner, the Tunisian Centre for Freedom of the Press (CTPJ). This follows a series of training workshops, with the two most recent held in Sidi Bouzid and Tunis.
This week also sees the launch of a major multi-media campaign in support of free expression rights developed in partnership with the Tunisian online media group Nawaat.org. Using 75 street billboards and adverts in national print and broadcast media, it will be seen by hundreds of thousands of Tunisians across the country.
Also this month, ANHRI and fellow IFEX-TMG member the Cartoonists Rights Network International (CRNI) organised a two-day workshop in the coastal Tunisian city of Sousse.
Sixteen digital and ink cartoonists from across Tunisia and the region, as CRNI Executive Director Dr Robert Russell put it, “all on the cutting edge of free speech,” gathered to exchange techniques and experiences.
The initiatives are part of the IFEX-TMG project Monitoring & Advocacy in Support of Independent Human Rights Defenders in Tunisia (2010-2012), managed by Index on Censorship and supported by the European Commission and Oxfam Novib.
The need for continuing work in the sector was underlined by the prosecution of Nabil Karoui, director of privately-owned Nessma TV for blasphemy and disturbing public order. The charges followed the station’s screening of the animated film Persepolis in October 2011. Karoui was fined 2,400 Tunisian dinars (961 GBP) on the charge of disturbing the public order, after protesters stormed Nessma TV.
“That Nabil Karoui avoided jail is not cause for celebration, the case should not have been brought to a court of law to begin with,” said Virginie Jouan, IFEX-TMG Chair.
The IFEX-TMG also expressed concern about the sentencing of Ghazi Ben Mohamed Beji and Jabeur Ben Abdallah Majri to over seven years in prison after Beji posted an online manuscript said to be critical of the Prophet, and Mejri reposted some of it.
30 Apr 2012 | Middle East and North Africa
The Tunisian Pirate Party is an offshoot of the international anti-censorship movement and the political wing of the Takriz movement, a “street resistance nework”.
In the aftermath of Ben Ali’s fall, one of its high-profile members, Slim Amamou, was briefly in the cabinet and the anti-censorship faction was legalised in March.
Sled Din Kchouk, the party’s president, talks to Index about politics, internet regulation, transparency and more
Index: Why did it take so long for the Tunisian Pirate Party to be legalised?
Sled Din Kchouk (SDK): The party was launched in October 2010 with the emergence of Takriz movement. At that time the party operated underground. On 9 May 2011 we filed a request for the Interior Ministry to legalise our party (…) After three months, we found out that following an order from Hbib Essid, the Interior Minister at that time, that the party had been banned (Essid has recently been nominated as an adviser to the Prime Minister).
Two people slowed down the process. The first person was General Rachid Ammar (Chief of Staff of the Tunisian Armed Forces), who seemed to have personal issues with Takriz because the movement heavily criticised him [last year a military tribunal ordered the filtering of the Takriz Facebook page]. The second person was Essid who the movement criticised for his links with the former regime. We, the Tunisian Pirate Party, politically represent the movement of Takriz. That is why they don’t like us.
Index: You admit to being part of Takriz, a movement that describes itself as a “street resistance movement”, and which on several occasions has called for violence against police?
SDK: Sure we do. We are the political tongue of Takriz. When someone deprives you from your most basic rights, you only have one choice left: violence. But, Takriz today is employing political speech, with no insults and no bad words. And the best example for that is me; I’m now standing in front of you and talking to you with neither insults, nor violence. I’m proud to be part of Takriz, a movement that will never give up its principles.
Index: How will the Tunisian Pirate Party attract sympathisers and voters when most Tunisians do not consider internet freedom a priority?
SDK: We have an entire economic programme for Tunisia that would create jobs. In Tunisia, we cannot use eBay. Such services have to be available. All companies have to be available online to facilitate commercial transactions. The Tunisian Dinar cannot be converted to other currencies in other countries. Our objective is to open the Tunisian economy via the internet. We also want to revolutionise education through the World Wide Web. In Tunisia only those who study in private universities benefit from distance learning. Why not those who go to public universities too?
Index: Do you plan to run for office in upcoming elections, whether local, legislative or presidential? The Swedish Pirate Party has two seats in EU parliament. Do you think that one day Tunisian Pirate Party will gain seats in parliament?
SDK: With a judiciary, media, and a Ministry of Interior still loyal to Ben Ali [the autocratic former President who ruled the country for 23 years], I do not feel reassured about elections. At the same time, it is our right as Tunisian youths to take part in elections, to be represented, and to shout: we do exist. As for next year’s elections, I cannot answer this question now. It is still too early to decide.
The countries where Pirate Parties are doing well have real democracy. And politicians want the youth to take part in the game. But in Tunisia young people are still not that interested in politics. We, as the Tunisian Pirate Party, want to tell the youth of Tunisia [they] should be leaders. Why do we always have to create cults of personality, and follow them as leaders? The youth should take the initiative and create an alternative. [Our current politicians] are not better skilled than the youth of Tunisia.
Index: Does the Pirate Party support internet legislation in Tunisia? There is an ongoing heated debate about whether the internet, and freedom of speech, should be restricted by what President Moncef Marzouki has called “red lines”. What do you think?
SDK: Before 14 January 2011, Tunisian netizens shared one goal: getting rid of the dinosaur Ben Ali. After 14 January, the internet has been used by many political parties as a propaganda tool. We can certainly use internet during electoral campaigns, but not to defame each other or spread rumours.
Such misconducts are not going to last forever because the Tunisian citizen is brilliant. He is aware that the right wing is using the net to attack the left wing and vice versa. So there is no need for the authorities to regulate the internet. Even if they draft internet legislation, via the use of proxies we can have access to everything.
Index: What is your position on the hacking of the e-mail of Prime Minister Hamadi Jebali by a group claiming affiliation with the international hacking collective Anonymous?
SDK: Hamdi Jebali made a choice to serve the Tunisian people. By making such choice, all information about Hamadi Jebali as a Prime Minister, and not as a person, should be accessible to the people. Any information that involves the livelihood, the rights and liberties of citizens, and the policies that would affect them in the future should be accessible. Tunisians love truth, so it is better for politicians not to lie to them. If the government has plans to take loans from some countries, why are they hiding such plans? Why not put the policies of open government into practice? Why fear transparency?
Index: But open government does not mean hacking into people’s emails? The use of internet has its principles, and you were saying that the Tunisian Pirate Party has its own principles too. Would you accept it if someone hacks into your own e-mail?
SDK: It is against our principles not to respect individual’s right to privacy. The e-mail address that was hacked was not the PM’s personal e-mail address, but it was a professional one under the name of the ruling party, Ennhadha.
