The Sidi Bouzid revolution: Ben Ali flees as protests spread in Tunisia

After the events around the Sidi Bouzid protests in Tunisia, a similar event happened yesterday in Oran, Algeria. In a strange coincidence Moroccan authorities also arrested (yesterday/ on Wednesday) Professor Mohamed Abou Nasr, the President of the Moroccan Human Rights Association (AMDH) for the region of Casablanca...

Pourquoi ce silence de l'Elysée et des capitales européennes sur ce qui se passe en Tunisie?

La Tunisie est depuis longtemps un partenaire privilégié de l'Europe sur le plan économique, de la lutte contre l'immigration ou de la lutte contre le terrorisme. Elle dispose de solides alliés, comme l'Italie et la France, d'où, certainement, le silence embarrassé qui prévaut aujourd'hui.

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Le mouvement est très important mais c'est un mouvement populaire et il n'y a pas de leaders politiques, non?

Le mouvement apparaît spontané, et s'il est soutenu par de nombreux syndicalistes militants, il n'est dominé par aucune figure politique.

L'étau s'est progressivement resserré autour des organisations susceptibles de tenir tête au pouvoir en place. Le principal syndicat, l'Union générale du travail de Tunisie (l'UGTT), a ainsi été infiltré par le gouvernement. Selon Yanis, quelques sections régionales refusent encore de rallier le mouvement de protestation:

«Certains responsables de l'UGTT occupent des fonctions dans le parti unique, ils ne veulent pas se mouiller.»

Observatorio tunecino para los derechos y libertades sindicales
ABDEL WHAB AMRI, profesor de instituto y sindicalista, nos explica los planteamientos de la OTDLS:

El Observatorio tunecino por los derechos y las libertades sindicales se creó en el 2008 con el objetivo de defender los derechos de los trabajadores que sufren abusos y promover su sensibilización para organizase, defender sus derechos no solamente en el trabajo sino también dentro del sindicato. Esa es nuestra realidad, tenemos que defendernos también de nuestro propio sindicato.

En el 2007, se creó la Confederación General del Trabajo de Túnez (CGTT) como un intento de crear un sindicalismo independiente del poder. No ha sido legalizado y el proyecto está, por el momento, paralizado.

En Túnez, por lo tanto, tenemos una sola central sindical, la Unión General del Trabajo de Túnez (UGTT), que domina todo el sector público (en los sectores privados, el sindicalismo es muy débil). La UGTT fue el primer sindicato creado en el Norte de África, tuvo un papel heroico en la lucha contra el colonialismo y en las huelgas de los años 70 y 80, sufriendo una dura represión. Es un sindicato con una historia de lucha y dignidad, pero hoy es un aparato de poder, que gestiona múltiples negocios (hoteles, seguros, supermercados...) donde cualquier disidencia es inmediatamente aplastada. Su dirección está sometida al poder, incluso apoya la reelección del presidente en las elecciones de octubre. Es una organización burocrática, que ha traicionado a sus propios militantes en la lucha de la cuenca minera de Gafsa, que llega al extremo de acordar que ningún sindicato de la UGTT pueda declarar una huelga sin el permiso de su comité ejecutivo.

Nuestra organización es muy joven, todavía no estamos legalizados ni tenemos local, tenemos un comité de dirección de 7 personas y tenemos 6 puntos de observación: Túnez capital, Gabes, Gafsa, Al Kasrrine, Touzer y Jandoba. Nuestra actividad se centra actualmente en enviar comunicados de apoyo, presentar denuncias de abusos contra los trabajadores y en visitas de apoyo a reivindicaciones de los trabajadores. Mantenemos una campaña de solidaridad con los 30 compañeros /as presos/as desde la revuelta de la cuenca minera de Gafsa, a pesar de que el poder trata de ocultar la realidad y de aislar a los presos, silenciando cualquier apoyo..

Abdelatif Bensalem, a Spanish-speaking intellectual in exile in Paris, laments, however, that the regime of his country still has the support of France, Italy and Spain and the U.S., countries that have managed to convince that is a bulwark against radical Islam. No European government has condemned the actions of the Tunisian police whose shots killed two protesters on Christmas Eve in Mezel Bouzayane.

The Spanish Secretary of State for the EU, Diego Lopez Garrido, made great efforts during the Spanish Presidency to give Tunisia the so-called "advanced status" enjoyed by Morocco since 2008 and which makes it a privileged partner in Europe, but failed to finish negotiation.

IFEX, a Canadian NGO that supports the Tunisian opposition, tried to hold in November in Madrid, a meeting of dissidents inside and outside the country, but could not because the Consulate of Spain in Tunisia did not grant visas to two prominent opponents of Ben Ali, according to organizers.

Fresh unrest has taken place in Algeria as protests over rising costs and unemployment spread after a night of rioting in Algiers, the capital, in which youths attacked a police station and torched shops.

Authorities rushed police reinforcements to several towns on Thursday, where hundreds of youths took to the streets.

Youths blocked major regional roads around Boumerdes, about 60km east of Algiers, and Bejaia, 200km further east, the online edition of the El-Watan newspaper reported.

Authorities sent in "a large number of convoys of anti-riot police," it said.

Protests have been reported at the Martyrs' Square, Balkor, Bash Jarrah, Babal Wadi and Astawali, while both Jalfa in southern Algeria and Wahran in the west also witnessed violent rallies in protest over the deteriorating living conditions and rising prices...

It is three weeks today since Mohamed Bouazizi lit the flame in Tunisia. How are we to regard the events since then? How should we characterise them?

Writing for the Guardian last week, I used the word "uprising", though I can't say I gave it a lot of thought at the time. Based on what I knew then, "uprising" seemed the obvious choice – and it still does if you need to boil it all down to a single word.

Yesterday, writing for Le Temps, French journalist Christophe Ayad gave a slightly longer description: "Pas encore une révolution, mais plus qu’une révolte" (Not yet a revolution but more than a revolt.) That, too, seems a fair summary.

But note the "not yet" bit. What we are seeing now may not be a revolution in itself, but its precursor. Personally, I do think a revolution of sorts is coming and will be surprised if the Ben Ali regime is still in place two or three years hence – for the simple reason that it's incapable of adapting. The protesters' grievances cannot be addressed in any meaningful way while it remains in power, and the clear message from the Tunisian people is that they have had enough.

This may seem a difficult point for the world outside to grasp – especially the Americans. How do the events in Tunisia mesh with the "forward strategy of freedom" (militarised and heavily overlaid with international politics) that George Bush used to talk about? They don't – and that's their beauty.

Also, Tunisia isn't a case of Tsvangirai versus Mugabe, Yushchenko versus Yanukovych or Ouattara versus Gbagbo. Organised political parties are irrelevant here, as they are these days in most of the Arab world. Nor is there a charismatic figure that the media can easily latch on to, like Aung San Suu Kyi in Burma or Lech Walesa in the Polish shipyards. In that respect, Tunisia 2011 looks more like Paris 1968, with a random assortment of students and trade unionists in the vanguard plus – to bring it up right to date – a collection of Twitterers, Facebook users and tech-savvy cyber warriors.

Will it be suppressed like Paris 1968? Somehow, I doubt it. For one thing, the protests are more widespread and the grievances more deeply felt. Others are less sanguine about that. On the Arabist blog, Issandr El Amrani suggests Ben Ali is unlikely to be dislodged without a strong diplomatic push from the EU, and he quotes several articles that are considerably more sceptical than I am.

But let's turn now to another description. Writing in Foreign Policy, Marc Lynch talks of "Obama's Arab Spring" (with a carefully-placed question mark after it) and links the developments in Tunisia to others in Jordan, Kuwait and Egypt. (We might also include Algeria where there are reports of Tunisian-style disturbances too.)

Why Obama has to be brought into it, I haven't the faintest idea. The Tunisian protesters aren't doing it for Obama's sake and as far as I'm concerned the longer he keeps his nose out, the better. American support at this stage is more likely to hinder than help, though I wouldn't object to a final nudge from the White House when Ben Ali is on the brink of toppling.

But, setting Obama aside, consider the idea of an Arab Spring. The sentiments and long pent-up frustrations expressed by Tunisians during the last three weeks are shared, to a very large extent, by Arabs throughout the Middle East. They complain endlessly amongst themselves – and yet they feel there is little, if anything, they can do about it.

The Tunisian uprising is beginning to change that. It is giving Arabs a glimpse of possibilities that were unimaginable just a month ago. It is profoundly empowering and its psychological effects are not to be underestimated. It is the opposite of the gloom that settled over the Arab world from 1967 onwards and may prove to be no less important.

Could this mean that we are about to see the crumbling of Arab regimes, one after another, as happened in Eastern Europe? In the short term, probably not. But suppose – and this is by no means an implausible scenario – that as resistance in Tunisia continues the regime's support gradually ebbs away, until eventually Ben Ali's position becomes untenable. Elections follow and the country emerges as a sort of East European style democracy (or better, Latin American style): far from ideal, but something that can be built upon.

That would be significant for the whole region: regime change of the home-grown variety, not imposed from outside in the way that Iraq was, or from above to give an existing regime the appearance of legitimacy. It would be something unique in the Arab Middle East: democracy by popular demand.

But could it be replicated in other Arab countries? That is a more difficult question. To a greater or lesser degree, all the Arab regimes present similar problems: a lack of legitimacy, a lack of accountability and transparency, corruption, authoritarianism and elderly leaders (for the most part) governing a frustrated, youthful population.

Some of the regimes, though, are more resilient than others. While it's tempting to suggest that Egypt could be next – the Mubarak era is plainly coming to an end – the regime itself, unpopular though it is, does have an extensive patronage base that may be enough to keep it in power for some years yet. And the same could be said of several other countries.

The Tunisian regime, on the other hand, looks especially vulnerable because it has relied so heavily on fear and repression as mechanisms for control. Other Arab regimes do that too, but they also have more subtle and diverse weapons in their armoury. Once the fear barrier is broken in Tunisia though (as seems to be happening), there is little left to protect Ben Ali.

So, I don't expect Tunisia alone to bring down the entire Arab house of cards. What it will do is intensify the pressure for change that exists already in other countries and encourage people to look to themselves, rather than outside, for solutions. It will also help dispel the idea that the long-surviving regimes we see in place today are permanent fixtures. They are not, and one day they will be history.

Brian Whitaker, 7 Jan 2011

Parti Pirate Tunisie - Pirate Party Tunisia
Press Release 
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
TUNIS, TUNISIA 2011.01.06 
 
The Pirate Party of Tunisia involved in breaking the Tunisian media blackout on the social unrest happening in many Tunisian cities from December 18th 2010 is facing harsh political and police repression from the undemocratic and corrupt government of Tunisia.
 
In the course of our last operations our members relayed videos and information on police killing young civilians, on suicide cases related to repression and poverty while riots are happening in the cities of Sidi Bouzid, Siliana and Thala. The Party is also distributing in tunisian universities and schools USB Keys and CD ROMS with installation of the TOR Software needed to circumvent the major wave of cyber censorship happening on the Tuninsian Internet and to protect tunisian Internet users from the hacking the tunisian cyber police is relying on to monitor Internet Users and prevent truth from being relayed online.
 
On Thursday 2011.01.06, 
 
Slah Eddin Kchouk aka Le Loup
Azyz Ammami aka Azyoz GM
Slim Ammamou aka Slim404
 
three members of the party, were kidnapped by the tunisian political police. No warrant was used. Nobody including their families is aware of where they are being detained as of now. Their computers have also been confiscated by the police. The three young tunisians hold university degrees and wouldn't be involved in illegal activities.
 
Tunisia is a country known for its undemocratic and corrupt political regime under the presidence of Zine ElAbidine Ben Ali these past 23 years. 
 
Tunisia is a country where torture while in detention or in prison is very common as reported and documented by Red Cross, Amnesty, HRW and other NGO's.
 
Pirate Party Tunisia severely condemns the dictatorship of Ben Ali and will engage every possible action to 
 
1. Free its members
2. Seek international legal course in case of torture and inhumane treatment on its members. 
 
In addition to our members, several other young tunisians were arrested on the same grounds the same day two of them are Hammadi Kaloucha a blogger and cyber activist and Hamada Ben Aoun a 22 year old singer and activist.
 
We're asking the international community for help to put pressure on the Tunisian Government to release our members.

Dozens of Syrians declared their support for the recent protests in Tunisia, by creating a group on Facebook, Syrians Support the Tunisian Intifada, which has to date acquired about 100 supporters.

The page contains the latest news about the protests, related videos and comments which back and encourage Tunisian people to go on with their protests.

One of the supporters wrote, “What happened in Tunisia is a matter of pride. The democratic street raises clear demands and communicates peacefully.”

Another wrote, “People in green Tunisia, go on in your revolution, we and the world are with you, and let the Intifada spread to all the capitals in the world who violate their peoples` rights.”

A third supporter said, “Those who call for rights, freedom and justice in the whole world, are partners. ”

Some other comments compared the Tunisian regime with that of Syria. “Bashar al-Asad and Zain al-Abidin Bi Ali are two ugly sides of the same coin,” said one.

Many others expressed their optimism about what is going on in Tunisia.”Thanks for Tunisian youth for giving us this hope of changing,” another commented...

Football stadiums are one of the only places where people in Algeria publicly voice their political frustrations, and matches are seen a potential catalyst for protests.

Does anyone know if 'Intifada' has any specific Palestinian connotations or whether it's just a general word for an uprising?

The UGTT was the first union created in North Africa. It played a heroic part in the struggle against colonialism and the strikes in the 70s and 80s. It is a union with a history of struggle and dignity, but today it is a part of the apparatus of power that manages multiple businesses (hotels, insurance, supermarkets…) where any dissidence is immediately crushed. Its leadership submits to power, even supporting the reelection of the president in the elections in October [2008?]. It is a bureaucratic organisation which has betrayed its own militants in the struggle of the mining basin at Gafsa, going to the extreme of agreeing that no union of the UGTT can call a strike without the permission of the executive committee.

Salima Ghezali, a leading Algerian journalist and human rights activist, told Al Jazeera in a phone interview that the outbreak of protests is "both very local and very global".

Algerians have followed protests over economic dissatisfaction not only in neighbouring Tunisia, but also in Europe.

At the same time, she said the rioting is a consequence of years of economic and political mismanagement. 

Although hardly a week goes by without geographically-specific protests over particular incidents, she said that the nationwide movement that has sprung up this week is very different.

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Jeremy Keenan, a social anthropologist said that the social revolt is an uprising, rather than a protest movement.

"The word that I'm hearing on the streets of Algiers isn't protest, it's Intifada," he told Al Jazeera.

There has been a "massive show of repression" by the state, he said, citing the police reinforcements.

He noted that the authorities appeared to be taking care to avoid killing any protesters, "probably because they're scared".

The El Khabar newspaper, citing local sources, said in its online edition that one young man had been killed in clashes on Friday in the city of Msila, about 250 km (155 miles) southeast of the capital. If confirmed, it would be the first fatality.

There was no official comment on the report, and no details on how the man was killed.

The official APS news agency said protesters ransacked government buildings, bank branches and post offices in "several eastern cities" overnight, including Constantine, Jijel, Setif and Bouira.

El día 6 de enero se ha realizado la jornada de solidaridad internacional con el pueblo tunecino, celebrándose manifestaciones y concentraciones en diferentes países.

Tanto en Marruecos, como en Argelia y Mauritania se han emitido distintos comunicados de solidaridad. En Argel, el SNAPAP ha celebrado un encuentro sindical de solidaridad y una delegación ha entregado un escrito de protesta en la embajada de Túnez en Argel. En Bruselas (Bélgica), Ginebra (Suiza), Montreal y Québec (Canadá), Berlín (Alemania), Londres (Gran Bretaña)Beirut (Líbano) y Nápoles (Italia) se han celebrado concentraciones, generalmente frente a los consulados tunecinos.

En Francia, donde se concentra la mayoría de la emigración tunecina en Europa se han celebrado concentraciones en numerosas ciudades (Lille, Lyon, Marsella, Nantes, París, Montpellier, Estrasburgo, Toulouse…).

Tunisia's main union on Saturday condemned authorities for their heavy-handed response to a wave of social unrest, during a gathering in the capital which took place under tight security.

Surrounded by riot police, several hundred members of the Tunisian General Union of Labour, which rights groups accuse of being too close to the government, observed a minute's silence for at least five people who have died since protests began last month.

Protests sparked by high youth unemployment have spread from the central town of Sidi Bouzid to other parts chiefly in the north African country's interior, which lags behind the prosperous coastal areas.

"We support the demands of the people in Sidi Bouzid and interior regions. The UGTT cannot but be with this region, behind those in need and demanding jobs," said the union's deputy general secretary, Abid Brigui.

"It is against nature to condemn this movement, it is not normal to respond with bullets," Brigui said, urging the government to hold a dialogue with disaffected young people.

The union released a declaration demanding the release of all those in detention and the lifting of security measures that have seen some of the worst-hit towns blockaded.

"The UGTT is making a great about-turn today by joining the aspirations of the people and supporting their socio-economic and political demands," opposition economist Mahmoud Ben Romdhane told AFP...

After Sidi Bouzid, the unrest spread to all the neighbouring municipalities – Menzel Bouzaiane, Mezzouna, Miknassi – with demonstrators shouting the same slogans against corruption and the tyranny of power.

The authorities reacted by going on the offensive and implementing a security clampdown. Ben Ali promised "to apply the full force of the law", and gave the order to fire on the angry crowds. Three young people were killed and hundreds more injured. Many of them could not be evacuated to the hospitals because the police had formed a cordon around the cities and were not allowing any traffic to pass. Hundreds of young people were arrested, and a curfew was imposed.

Over the next two weeks, solidarity movements were formed in every city in the country (Jendouba, Le Kef, Feriana, Kairouan, Kasserine, Gafsa, Djerba, Sfax, Monastir, Sousse, Tunis). There were repeated confrontations with the security forces, who suppressed peaceful demonstrations with violence.

Journalists were prevented from covering the events. Those who attempted to do their job were violently attacked or arrested.

The worst to date, however, was the assault on the lawyers. On 31 December, all Tunisia's lawyers had been called upon by the independent national bar association to wear a red armband as a sign of solidarity. However, starting at dawn, the police besieged all the courts in the country and prevented the lawyers from entering their place of work. Many lawyers were attacked and injured in the process, or had their robes torn, notably in the courts of Gafsa, Jendouba, Mahdia, Djerba, Monastir, Sousse and Sfax. A very large number were injured in Tunis in particular.

The national bar association called for a strike on 6 January in response to this police aggression, which in some cases took place within the confines of the courts themselves. The trade union federation in Sidi Bouzid has also announced a general strike on 12 January.

Fearing a reaction from students and high school pupils, the police also used "preventative" violence against schoolchildren, who went back to school on 3 January. This provoked confrontations in many towns including Ben Guerdan, Kasserine, Gabes, Gafsa, Chebba, and Thala, where they set fire to the governing party building...

Three people have been killed and hundreds injured in continuing protests in Algeria, as the government meets to discuss ways of halting the rising food costs and unemployment that have sparked the unrest.

At least 300 of the 400 people injured in the riots were police officers, Dahou Oul Kablia, Algeria's interior minister, said on national radio on Saturday.

One of the three people killed was named as 18-year-old Azzedine Lebza. He was shot dead in Ain Lahdjel in the M'Sila region, 300km from Algiers, the capital.



"He died in an attempt to break into a police station," Kablia said.

A second demonstrator was killed on Friday in Bou Smail, a small town 50km west of Algiers, he said.

"He was picked up in the street, wounded. A pathologist said he had died from wounds to the head, but the cause of death has not yet been established."

A medical official said earlier that the man, identified in media reports as 32-year-old Akriche Abdelfattah, had been hit in the face by a tear gas canister.

The third body was found in a hotel burned down by rioters, the interior minister said.

[…]

Algiers, which has seen protests in recent days, was calmer on Saturday, but witnesses reported fresh protests in the Kabylie region.

[…]

Mohamed Zitout, a former Algerian diplomat, told Al Jazeera: "It is a revolt, and probably a revolution, of an oppressed people who have, for 50 years, been waiting for housing, employment, and a proper and decent life in a very rich country.

"But unfortunately it is ruled by a very rich elite that does not care about what is happening in the country - because they did not give people what they want, even though the government has the means to do so, the people are now revolting."

Young people clashed with police in Algiers and several other towns across the country on Friday despite appeals for calm from imams.

In Annaba, 600km west of the capital, rioting broke out after Friday prayers in a poor neighbourhood of the city and continued late into the night. A local government office was ransacked, according to witnesses.

Protesters also cut down electricity poles during the night, cutting off power to the working class suburb of Auzas.

In Tizi Ouzou, the capital of the eastern Kabylie region, residents said rioting had spread from the city centre to the outskirts, and demonstrators burning tyres blocked the main road to Algiers.