The Skeptic الشكاك

1044 Echoes of Mahalla… in Tunisia

Completely slammed with work and suffering from crippling IT problems, but wanted to flag 10 quick items:

1. I highly recommend Doshka ya Doshka, an excellent blog from Gaza by “a startled Anglo-Arab woman.” I have just subscribed to the RSS feed.

2. The case against editors and journalists from Al-Wafd and Al-Masry al-Youm for reporting on Egyptian real-estate developer Talaat Mostafa’s murder trial despite a gag order has been referred to trial. According to Al-Masry al-Youm, prosecutors have taken no action on another case, against editors and journalists from the government-owned Al-Ahram, Al-Akhbar, and Gomhuriya newspapers, for reporting on the trial.

3. Al-Masry al-Youm and Al-Wafd are also under fire from Amr Bargisi, who, in an op-ed for the Wall Street Journal, called them “Jew haters.” The following day, Al-Masry al-Youm ran a summary of his story.

4. Patrick Swayze is, alas, not dead yet.

5. The Muslim Brotherhood has promised to endorse Gamal Mubarak, the son, if President Hosni Mubarak, the father, resigns. Surely a bit tongue in cheek, but over the years I have heard from many people that they would forget their complaints about the president if he were to resign.

6. Speaking of the Brothers, another 28 were arrested in Marsa Matrouh and Alexandria last Saturday. The Press Syndicate’s Freedoms Committee is sponsoring a conference on behalf of Mohammed Adil and Mohammed Khairy, two Gaza solidarity activists with Brotherhood ties detained in a separate roundup last month. Both maintain blogs.

7. Echoes of Mahalla: Amnesty International is calling on the Tunisian government to investigate allegations that security forces tortured labor activists after demonstrations spread through Tunisia’s southeastern Gafsa region last summer:

AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL
PUBLIC STATEMENT
3 December 2008
Tunisia: Urgent investigation needed into alleged human rights violations in the Gafsa region

Amnesty International today called on the Tunisian government to order an independent investigation into allegations of torture and other abuses by security forces when quelling protests earlier this year in the Gafsa region on the eve of the trial of a local trade union leader and 37 others accused of fomenting the unrest. Adnan Hajji, Secretary General of local office of the General Union of Tunisian Workers (UGTT) in Redeyef, and his co-accused are due to go on trial on 4 December 2008 on charges including “forming a criminal group with the aim of destroying public and private property”. They could face up to more than ten years of imprisonment if convicted. At least six of 38 accused are to be tried in their absence.

In a letter to Tunisia’s Minister of Justice and Human Rights Béchir Tekkari, Amnesty International called for the authorities to disclose the outcome of an official investigation which they said had been set up after police opened fire on demonstrators on 6 June 2008, killing one man and injuring others, sparking allegations that police had used excessive force. The letter also detailed cases in which people suspected of organizing or participating in protests are reported to have been detained and tortured by police who forced them to sign incriminating statements that could be used against them at trial and falsified their arrest dates in official records.

BACKGROUND
The phosphate-rich Gafsa region, in south-east Tunisia, was wracked by a wave of popular protests in the first half of this year. They began in the town of Redeyef after the region’s major employer, the Gafsa Phosphate Company, announced the results of a recruitment competition. These were denounced as fraudulent by those who were unsuccessful and others, including the UGTT, and the protests, which developed into a more general protest about high unemployment and rising living costs, then spread to other towns as the authorities deployed large numbers of police and other security forces into the region. Hundreds of protestors were arrested and more than 140 have been charged with offences, some of whom have been convicted and sentenced to jail terms.

For the continuing repercussions of labor unrest in Mahalla, see 3arabawy.

8. Jordan is threatening to jail smokers.

9. Peter Lagerquist has an excellent article in MERIP about the riots in Acre last October. Who can resist an article with such headings as “hummus and demography?”

10. Where (not very) particular people congregate: An online map of bars in downtown Cairo, including such helpful information as how much a Stella costs and whether shisha is also available.

695 Parliament Destroyed, Paper Banned

Let me never again complain that things happen in Egypt only when I’m out of the country. I was at a meeting two blocks away from Parliament around the time the fire started in the Shura Council yesterday. I noticed nothing as I was leaving (the air is always full of smoke), and learned of the disaster only via SMS when I got home. I watched the fire on TV like millions of other squares.

Word has it that Al-Badil‘s late edition was banned last night for its reporting on the fire [UPDATE: I’m now hearing the paper wasn’t officially banned. The government-owned Al-Ahram printing house simply delayed publication of the edition until it was too late, effectively ensuring that it didn’t come out. FURTHER UPDATE: The edition came out the next day, toned down]. The daily has published the edition online (full paper in a compressed file here). For convenience’s sake, I’m posting their coverage as image files here:

While I was in India for a wedding, it seems two big stories broke in Egypt:

• The state introduced stiff new traffic laws in a Quixotic attempt to curb the chaos and gridlock that paralyzes Cairo. That Al-Ahram Weekly story doesn’t mention the fines for professional drivers who smoke behind the wheel. Nice for nonsmoker passengers, but probably foolish to produce hundreds of thousands of pissed-off, nicotine-deprived taxi drivers.
• The Cairo and Alexandria Stock Exchange took a dive when rumors suggested that a prominent Egyptian businessman had fled the country following the arrest of suspects in the brutal murder of Lebanese singer Suzanne Tamim. Stocks rebounded when the businessman and his friends debunked those rumors. A government ban on reporting the story did little to keep the story quiet, but perhaps helped restore confidence in the stock market by suggesting the government would stand by the maligned millionaire. Feisty Al-Dustur ran the story; editor Ibrahim al-Mansur told AFP government agents pulled all copies of that edition as a result. General Prosecutor Abd al-Magid Mahmud reportedly lodged yet another case against Managing Editor Ibrahim Eissa in connection with the affair.

In unrelated news, Global Voices has an excellent update on online censorship in Tunisia, and Ellen Knickmeyer has an article for the Washington Post about those nauseating “Veil Your Lolipop” ads.

575 From the Department of Forgotten Small Wars

Rebels attacked a military patrol in Mali, near the Algerian border, on Saturday morning. Europeans might care because renewed fighting might endanger the release of two Austrian tourists taken hostage last month in Tunisia and spirited across the border into Mali. Americans might care because the group calls itself Al-Qaeda in the Maghreb. Seif al-Islam al-Qadhafi, possible heir to Libya’s Brother Leader, is mediating between Austria and Al-Qaeda.

Le Monde:

Reprise des affrontements dans le nord du Mali, où se trouvent deux otages autrichiens d’Al-Qaida
LEMONDE.FR avec AFP | 22.03.08 | 18h09

es affrontements entre l’armée et les rebelles touareg ont repris, samedi 22 mars dans l’extrême nord du Mali, alors que les violences ont déjà fait huit morts – dont cinq civils – depuis la capture, jeudi, de 33 militaires par des rebelles. Cette brusque dégradation de la situation sécuritaire intervient juste avant l’expiration, dimanche soir, d’un ultimatum pour la libération des deux otages autrichiens enlevés le 22 février en Tunisie par la branche d’Al-Qaida au Maghreb et qui se trouveraient, avec leurs ravisseurs, dans le nord du Mali.

Samedi matin, les rebelles ont attaqué à la mitrailleuse une patrouille de l’armée, à 30 km au nord de la localité d’Abeïbara, non loin de la frontière avec l’Algérie. Aucune source n’était en mesure d’indiquer le nombre de tués ou de blessés.

LE FILS DE MOUAMMAR KADHAFI IMPLIQUÉ DANS LES NÉGOCIATIONS

Ces violences pourraient perturber les négociations pour la libération des Autrichiens Wolfgang Ebner, 51 ans, et Andrea Kloiber, 44 ans, enlevés alors qu’ils circulaient dans le sud de la Tunisie. Ils auraient été conduits par leur ravisseurs dans le nord malien.

Le fils du dirigeant libyen Mouammar Kadhafi, Seif Al-Islam, est en contact avec les ravisseurs et se dit optimiste sur leur prochaine libération, a affirmé samedi le dirigeant autrichien d’extrême droite Jörg Haider, qui maintient des contacts étroits avec le responsable libyen. Selon plusieurs sources, l’ultimatum de dimanche soir pourrait être une nouvelle fois repoussé.

Credit: the headline is inspired by the discovery, in a friend’s bathroom, of Index on Censorship‘s 2006 issue on “small wars you may have forgotten.” I wouldn’t mention it, but assassinated Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya’s 2002 brief to Index on Censorship on “the corrosive evil of [the] forgotten war” in Chechnya, which I believe appeared in that issue, makes it well worth the digression. Here’s a taste:

The city was sealed off after a series of strange events. Controls were so tight you couldn’t even move between different districts within the city, let alone make your way out of Grozny on foot.

On that day, 17 September, a helicopter carrying a commission headed by Major-General Anatoly Pozdnyakov from the general staff in Moscow was shot down directly over the city. He was engaged in work quite unprecedented for a soldier in Chechnya.

Only an hour before the helicopter was shot down, he told me the task of his commission was to gather data on crimes committed by the military, analyse their findings, put them in some order and submit the information for the president’s consideration. Nothing of the kind had been done before.

Their helicopter was shot down almost exactly over the city centre. All the members of the commission perished and, since they were already on their way to Khankala airbase to take a plane back to Moscow, so did all the material they had collected. That part of the story was published by Novaya Gazeta.

Before the 19 September issue was sent to the printers, our chief editor Dmitry Muratov was summoned to the ministry of defence (or so I understand) and asked to explain how on earth such allegations could be made. He gave them an answer, after which the pressure really began. There should be no publication, he was told. [More…]

437 Mohammed Abbou and Ibrahim Eissa

The Arabic Network for Human Rights Information (HRinfo) reports that Tunisian authorities have prevented Mohammed Abbou, the recently released Tunisian online journalist imprisoned after he wrote an article unfavorably comparing Ben Ali to Sharon, from traveling to Cairo to attend editor Ibrahim Eissa’s trial:

430 Citizen Zouari

I’m flattered to find Abdallah al-Zouari has used photos I took of him in the design of his new blog. And I’m particularly pleased to find he’s opened a blog.

Since al-Zouari completed an eleven-year prison sentence (for his work for the newspaper of the banned, and now destroyed, al-Nahda Party) in 2002, authorities have sought to silence and punish him because of his outspoken criticism of government policies, notably on human rights. Zouari has been jailed three times, confined to a rural district in Medenine, 500 kilometers from his family’s home in suburban Tunis, and placed under round-the-clock police surveillance.

337 Police Seal off Tunisian NGO, Harrass Families of Political Prisoners

Updated, Friday, 2:28 a.m., Cairo time: Human Rights Watch is also calling on the government of Tunisia to end harrassment of political prisoners and their families:

On December 5, police in the city of Sousse questioned Monia Brahim, wife of hunger-striking prisoner Abdelhamid Jelassi, for one hour about her contacts with human rights organizations and activists abroad. Plainclothes agents had also questioned her on November 30 about her overseas contacts, and asked that she furnish their names.

Jelassi, along with Bouraoui Makhlouf, H?di Ghali, and Mohammed Salah Gsouma, are among the more than 100 men still imprisoned since authorities cracked down on the Islamist Nahdha movement in the early 1990s. These four, along with many others, were convicted in patently unfair mass trials held in military courts in 1992 on charges of plotting to overthrow the state. In recent years, authorities have conditionally released scores of these long-term Nahdha prisoners, while shortening the remaining terms for others. Jelassi, originally sentenced to a life term, is now due for release in 2010, his wife said.

[Full press release. Arabic version here]

Sorry to be late with this news, but I’ve been busy with work here in Egypt and have fallen behind on email.

Received this a few days ago from the National Council on Liberties in Tunisia (CNLT, by its French acronym):

Graves violations des libert?s de r?union et de circulation

Ce dimanche 3 d?cembre, d?importantes forces de police ont encercl? le si?ge de la Ligue tunisienne de d?fense des droits de l?homme o? devaient se r?unir d?anciens dirigeants de la LTDH qui ont constitu? un comit? de soutien ? la Ligue. La police a bloqu? tous les acc?s et interdit ? tous les invit?s de p?n?trer au local.

Le m?me jour, plusieurs d?fenseurs devaient se rendre ? Sousse au domicile de Moncef Marzouki, sous le coup d?une inculpation pour ?incitation de la population ? violer les lois du pays?. Ils ont eu droit ? des barrages de police sur toute la route avec contr?le d?identit? z?l? qui dure parfois des heures. Certains comme ma?tre N?jib Hosni ont ?t? bloqu?s sur les routes. Ceux qui ont r?ussi ? arriver devant le domicile de M. Marzouki, ont trouv? un important d?ploiement policier qui leur en a interdit l?acc?s. Les policiers ont malmen? ma?tres Ayadi, Maatar et Laabidi ainsi que le septuag?naire Ali Ben Salem, pr?sident de l?Amicale des anciens r?sistants. Les policiers ?taient assist?s de barbouzes qui ont us? de menaces et d?insultes grossi?res contre les pr?sents. Le Dr Marzouki a ?t? emp?ch? de quitter son domicile au moment o? il s?appr?tait ? repartir avec ses coll?gues pour Tunis en fin d?apr?s midi. Le chef de la police lui a clairement signifi? qu?il avait des instructions pour qu?il ne quitte pas son domicile.

Le CNLT:

• D?nonce avec la plus grande vigueur l?usage de la violence contre les d?fenseurs.
• Il condamne les pers?cutions dont la LTDH fait l?objet ainsi que le harc?lement judiciaire utilis? comme pr?texte pour justifier la violation de la libert? de r?union. Il d?nonce le gel ill?gal des activit?s ordinaires de la Ligue par la police.
• Il s??l?ve contre ces atteintes r?p?t?es ? la libert? de circulation des d?fenseurs qui sont devenus courants.
• Il d?nonce cette mise en r?sidence surveill?e qui ne dit pas son nom dont fait l?objet Moncef Marzouki.

Briefly, police blocked off the neighborhood of the Tunisian League for the Defense of Human Rights (LTDH) to prevent it from holding a meeting. Police and beltagis also blocked off the home of Moncef Marzouki, the former president of the LTDH, and prevented him from leaving his home.
I saw the same scene in September 2005 when the LTDH tried to hold a meeting to elect a new board. I was one of the few people who got through the police lines—thanks, I suspect, to the fact that they didn’t know what to do with this apparent idiot white boy showering them with elaborate compliments in an Egyptian accent. Anyway, it was a pretty grim scene…

[tags]Tunisia, Tunisie, LTDH[/tags]

275 Tunisian Prisoners Map

A Google Map hack in the service of political prisoners in Tunisia, from the tireless and innovative Sami ben Gharbia. Nice work, Sami.

[tags]Tunisia[/tags]

262 Ten-Minute Review

• Always, Egypt first: The Sept. 12 Al-Misri al-Youm reports on Muslim Brotherhood MPs’ proposals for amending the Constitution. They suggest that presidents should only be allowed to serve for two five-year terms, that Parliament should have more oversight of ministerial appointments and the budget, and that the legislative branch should have other checks on the executive. Alas, Nahdat Misr reports that they also continue to complain about the film adaptation of The Yacoubian Building and to complain that the government’s decision to raise the age at which girls may marry from 16 to 18 runs contrary to Sharia law.
• Al-Ahram reports that Interior Minister Habib al-Adli told Amnesty International Secretary General Irene Khan that the Emergency Law would be lifted when the Anti-Terrorism Law was approved. No news there.
• Khan also visited the Arab League and told delegates that Arabs need to do more on Darfur.
• Elsewhere, at a summit in Cuba, members of the Non-Aligned Movement condemned terrorism and Israel’s actions in Lebanon. Participants also defended the movement’s relevance.
• British Prime Minister Tony Blair called for an end to sanctions against the Palestinian government. One of his Cabinet ministers told Parliament that the settlements are a barrier to peace. As-Safir reported that the World Bank has certified that Palestinian incomes are at their lowest levels in 25 years. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas promised to pay his employees in the beginning of Ramadan, that is, in a little more than 10 days. Hamas said it was open to talks with Israel and that it expected to form a unity government within days.
• Maj. Gen. Udi Adam, who led Israel’s northern command during the 34-day offensive, resigned. An IDF commander who fired cluster munitions said these attacks had been “crazy and monstrous.” A leftover cluster bomblet exploded and injured two people in Bazouriya, a small town near Tyre.
• The Lebanese army deployed to the eastern part of southern Lebanon. For the moment, Israel will maintain its control of Ghajar, a town that previously straddled the Lebanese-Israeli border.
• Human Rights Watch issued a report documenting abuse of migrants, asylum-seekers, and refugees in Libya.
• Tunisia held a conference to discuss means of combatting illegal immigration (presumably to Europe, since you rarely see people scaling prison walls from the outside).
• Moroccan judicial officials postponed the trial of 56 people detained as terrorists to an unspecified date after the investigating judge failed to turn up to their hearing. His assistant said the judge was too tied-up with meetings to attend.

[tags]Morocco, Tunisia, Egypt, Lebanon, Israel, cluster-bombs, Hamas[/tags]

164 Tunisian Museum of Human Rights

Tunisian blogger Sami Ben Gharbia has put together a nice Flash animation based on photographs I took on my last trip to Tunisia. If you’re outside of Tunisia, you can see what he did here (if you’re in Tunisia, you’ll first need to figure out how to get around the government’s attempts to censor the site).

The photos are of Abdallah Zouari’s Museum of Human Rights. Zouari, a former journalist for al-Fajr, the newspaper of the banned al-Nahdha Party, spent 11 years as a political prisoner. Since his release in 2002, he has lived under “Administrative Control” in southern Tunisia, though his wife and children live in Tunis, roughly 500 miles away. The house is under constant surveillance, and visitors and neighbors are subject to police harrassment.

While you’re on ???? , stop, have a look around, and join me in thanking Sami for his work.

[tags]Tunisia, Tunisie, Zouari, human rights[/tags]

154 Former Tunisian Amnesty International President Arrested

Late on this, but I wanted to note a more important aspect to the story of the crackdown on Amnesty International in Tunisia than the ejection of a Swiss representative.

Et? arr?t? le 22 mai 2006 ? 12h30 ? la porte du (CHU) Centre Hospitalier Universitaire Farhat Hached de Sousse (lieu de travail) par un agent en civil qui m’a montr? ses papiers, mais n’avait ni convocation, ni mandat. N’ayant pas obtemp?r?, j’ai ?t? conduit de force vers une voiture de police banalis?e et puis conduit ? la s?ret? nationale de Sousse. On m’a entre-temps enlev? ma carte d’identit? et mon t?l?phone portable.

Au bout d’un quart d’heure, on m’a pris en voiture ? Tunis jusqu’au local de la police judiciaire. On m’a apport? une convocation que j’ai refus? de signer car elle m’a ?t? apport?e ? mon arriv?e ? Tunis puis on m’a fait lire un avertissement comme quoi ? l’Assembl?e G?n?rale de la Section Tunisienne s’est transform?e en tribune contre le pouvoir et le pr?sident de la r?publique ; ceci ?tait contre le statut d’Amnesty International (non ing?rence dans son propre pays). Cette interpellation est consid?r?e un dernier avertissement avant la dissolution de la Section Tunisienne d’Amnesty International en cas de r?cidive ?.
J’ai sign? pour information cet avertissement. J’ai ?t? lib?r? vers 18h15.

Hichem Osamn
Comit? Ex?cutif
AI Section Tunisienne

Briefly, Hichem Osamn, former president of Amnesty International’s Tunisia chapter, was also detained and forced to sign a statement saying that “the general assembly of the Tunisian chapter of Amnesty had been transformed into a tribune opposed to the power and president of the republic, that this was contrary to the statute of Amnesty International, and that this statement would be considered the last notice before the dissolution of the Tunisia chapter of Amnesty in case of its recidivism.”

A bully in a diaphanous judge’s robe.

[tags]Tunisia, tunisie, amnesty international[/tags]

I'm Reading: