Open letter to the Tunisian Interim Government : When will the Tunisian Ambassador in Damascus be pulled back?

Open letter to the Tunisian Interim Government 

When will the Tunisian Ambassador in Damascus be pulled back?

By Sufian Al-chorabi

Translated by: Kacem Jlidi

Member of the supreme committee to achievement objectives of the revolution, political reforms and democratic transition

For the Sixth month on a row, the political Syrian regime continues to direct its army weapons to the peaceful Syrians chests, dozens of innocent people are killed and injured everyday by bullets and bombs which the Syrian people spent a lot of money to have an acquisition of it, thinking it will be directed to restore their stolen land.
The Syrian Arab Army, which remained stationed in its military bases since 1967 while the occupying Israel continued the integration of the Golan Heights within the scope of its geographical area, decided to get off with all its military equipments to kill people of its own country, fiercely defending a political power which have lost its legitimacy when voices of free Syrians were shut-up through killings, displacements and detentions.
The regime of President Bashar Al-Assad which has long claimed to protect the front of Arab resistance against colonialism and imperialism did not care about the voices of his people demanding to live in freedom and dignity and the eradication of corruption. The first demonstrations that broke-in with slogans claiming “system reform” to claiming “bring down the regime” turned to be faced with harsh and loud response against the defenseless people.
Voices calling for the removal of Bashar al-Assad of the government has become the most overwhelming and wide spread at the moment, a President commented by many high hopes after the death of his father for major political and economic reforms to move Syria from the tyranny era to the democracy era, but its proven now, during the days of the Syrian revolution, that the qualities of the regime of Bashar al-Assad of not less bloody and brutal than that of his father.
And Tunisia, the cradle of Arab revolts and inspirer of rising people against oppression and arrogance, for freedom, pride and dignity cannot fail to consider the crimes committed against the free Syrians. The position of neutrality is unacceptable in a country supposed to have hosted the first victorious revolutions.
If the civil society and political movements in Tunisia has taken courageous positions in solidarity with the struggles of the Syrian people in their battle for democracy, the silence practiced by the Tunisian foreign ministry about the massacres committed against the Syrians, could only be a matter of surprise and disapproval.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Tunisia emanating from the victorious revolution can only take positions of advocacy for people craving freedom and dignity, and thus there is no choice for the interim government but to pull back the Tunisian Ambassador in Damascus, and fire the Syrian Ambassador in Tunisia in an expression of protest of Tunisia the revolution against the practices of the Syrian Baath Party against its own people.

Freedom for Palestine song- evil and pure propaganda?

Maxi Jazz, Dave Randall, LSK, the Durban Gospel Choir, Jamie Catto, Andrea Britton, Harry Collier, Sudha Kheterpal, Andy Treacy, Attab Haddad, Joelle Barker and Tony Reed are singers featured in a campaign song calling for freedom for Palestine.

Although, it’s expected to be released during early July yet it’s getting a good head start especially with some hot controversial comments heating up already.

Freedom for Palestine is the song’s name. The lyrics speak of the dramatic situation, the extreme violation of human rights, the refugees, the prison camps, children and justice.

The clip features the division wall (or as American and Israelis calls it the security barrier), footages from Gaza and also the signers in the recording studio along with a female Break Dancer.

Although the great success and positive feedback the campaign is getting, yet it’s quite shocking that negative responses go into calling the campaign as “evil” and “amazing piece of propaganda” as Glenn Beck a US media host did on his Fox News show.

Referring to the song’s lyrics, he questioned if these people referring to the campaigner know what they are doing or if they know what it means to destroy Israel.  He goes sarcastic and asks if they done their work on history… then he said “Before you know it, ‘Israeli occupation’ will be standard fare. Everyone will just see it as they’re just occupying that land. That is a lie.”

As a chart featuring the freedom flotilla to Gaza displays behind him, he goes saying that these sorts of campaigns are packaged in a form that everyone would embrace and that is evil.

The guardian says: “If the song makes it into the UK charts, it is likely to cause a dilemma for the BBC. The corporation ran into controversy last month for masking out the words “free Palestine” from a number recorded by Mic Righteous. It did it in order “to ensure impartiality was maintained”, it said. On another recent occasion, the word “Palestine” was excised from a BBC script.”

On March 5^th, Coldplay posted a link to the “Freedom for Palestine” video which features lyrics like ‘it could be you and your family/forced from your home and your history,’ and images of Israeli army checkpoints and the security fence, angering a large number of its Jewish and pro-Israel fan base.

According to the Washington post, there were 12,000 comments on their post, including promises to boycott the band and a Facebook group that demanded an apology to Israel within less than a day.

Anti-Israeli fans also posted comments to support Palestine, such as “Zionism is racism” and “Israel is an apartheid state.

After some facebook users reported the URL to the song as “abusive,” the link was blocked by facebook. But OneWorld quickly created a new site here.

No one can predict if this campaign can achieve some success with all the hate reactions around it, yet the controversy building around it even before release is an indication of what could be yet to come.

Ammar404 hunts a 5th facebook page

A fifth facebook page has been blocked access from Tunisia last week. Here we come to realize that the many reactions of cyber activists to the first blocked four pages didn’t get any attention from the censor and yet he continues to block access to any page that according to him is attacking the image of the Army.

Following a requisition from the Permanent Military Court in Tunis, the Tunisian Internet Agency (ATI) has therefore to filter a fan page Jalel Brick. The latter would be subject to prosecution for defamation against the Tunisian military body.

The complete list of blocked URLs in order of this court is displayed here

Unfortunately, attempts to censor the internet doesn’t stop there; last week, a civil court in Tunis had asked ATI to censor porn sites on the national network following a complaint filed by three lawyers.

So far, the ATI has refrained from commenting on these cases of censorship. But it expected that the agency has come out of  it’s silence and present it’s official position in a press conference regarding this censorship comeback in the upcoming days.

The battle over internet freedom unfortunately doesn’t end up there but it goes higher to advocate for from the G8 countries who led by Sarkozy plan to implement a “civilized internet” according to him.

Update: (Source: Tunisia Live) The Tunisian Internet Agency (ATI) has been ordered to block all pornographic websites. In a press conference held on May 31 at the headquarters of the ATI, Moez Chakchouk, the CEO of ATI announced that they are going to appeal the decree in the Court of Appeal(s).He asserted that blocking pornographic websites is not technically possible. In his explaination, he said that the ATI lacks economic resources to put into use a filtering device. Chakchouk also stressed the absence of an explicit legal text that would make the ATI responsible for Internet filtering.  He believes that such tasks should be the responsibility of special commissions which are currently unavailable in Tunisia.

Snap shot from the past to draw an agenda for Kairouan

These are the guests attending a speech of Ben Ali at Carthage Palace in March 20^th 2010 and Mai 1^st 2010. Check the first raw.  – Photo Credit: Nawaat.org (captured when viewed on state TV: Tounes 7).

The hint from the photo up here is to help me express the idea of how Kairouan shouldn’t be the same stagnant city as always. I’m not being clear then Let’s Google Kairouan and see what we get…hmm, there you go, the first web and image results show you an historic old city with the Great Mosque, the Mosque of the Three Doors, the Basin of the Aghlabids, and other numerous archaeological remains still fairly intact witnessing the glorious civilizations of the first centuries that passed by this small city…Cool, interesting! Oh and did I mention that one of the top results also states that Kairouan is listed in the UNESCO’s world heritage convention since 1988! Wow impressive!

Excuse me, but there is something missing in the whole Kairouan puzzle. The city and its historic monuments are still there which is perfect but what about its people?

What you notice when wondering in the streets of Kairouan is the amount of despair in the faces of its people; the crowded coffee shops everywhere and the dominating business in the area: restaurants: Kaftaji, mlaoui, chapatti and pizzarias!

But is that what Kairouan is all about, walls, stones and food?

What I’m trying to bubble out here is the lack, NO, I mean the Absence of all sorts of a cultural and entertaining life…

Institutions may already exist to take care and help develop a cultural scene but I’m 110% sure they were swollen by the purple system long ago. Is that too bad? Keep reading:

There in the heart of the city lays the huge Cultural House and to quote a friend who told me that it’s the biggest one in Tunisia “speaking of stones and walls” and not “achievements”!

He used to be a member of painting club and he mentioned to me how the responsible there takes young people’s paintings and buries them somewhere in the cold rooms of the Culture House! Shouldn’t those art works be presented in a gallery instead?

On a sadly funny note a another friend in Tunis directed my attention to this documentary supposed to be presented in Kairouan’s Culture House-   well guess what, I went to check it out where a bunch of old people sitting at the door prevented me from walking in and denied that there is any documentary what so ever to be played! I haven’t noticed any posters by the way.

I also can remember the pain in the ass that a group of young people with the dream to form a Rock band had to go through during high school just to get a room in this Culture House to rehearse and keep their instruments.

Oh, Am I nagging too much about the negativity and sad stories of the Culture House then let me switch the subject and tell you not to forget about the Basin of the Aghlabids that got totally neglected and did you know that after the whole campaign done by young people from Kairouan and the impressive project ideas they came up with to bring some life back to that monument and benefit from the surrounding area; the elite suggested to fill the place with trees and plants!! Young people had suggested making fountains, clubs, malls and hotels near one of the miracles of Aghaliba and they suggested filling it with tress!  And then started lecturing us about sustainable project ideas_ please give me a break!

Bottom line youth in Kairouan had enough with the bureaucracy and locked roads; it’s time to turn light ‘On’ in the Culture House and let’s have debates, workshops, and film and theatre festivals.

I want to see more and more NGOs and voluntary groups, more campaigns and more events and they need to be easy to be implemented! No more looking for Mr. X to approve and sign!!

Some suggested making Kairouan the capital of Tunisia; well that’s a very ambitious demand these days but when looking at the history of the city then we can understand the legitimacy of such a demand. But let’s be practical and work on making Kairouan a cultural capital as a first step and then demand shifting the political powers to it! Is that too much to ask for?

Article appeared on aghlabeats and on leadershit blog.