Tunisia: Thousands of Tunisians angered by the increasing prominence of ultra-conservative Islamists in a country only recently freed from dictatorial rule took to the streets in protest Saturday.
An AFP correspondent estimated several thousand activists, professors, artists and other demonstrators flooded the streets of the nation’s capital, including along Bourguiba Avenue, a well-known thoroughfare that became a centre for dissent during protests that led to the ouster of dictator Zine el Abidine Ben Ali a year ago.
Some in Tunisia are angry by the growing influence of radical Islamists, known as Salafists, who have dominated headlines in recent weeks. Police on Tuesday ended a weeks-long sit-in by Salafists at the university in Manouba, about 25 kilometres (15 miles) from Tunis. The Salafists were angry the university had banned the full-face Muslim veil, or niqab, over security concerns if students were concealed from head to toe.
Journalists have also suffered attacks at Salafist protests. “We are here to speak out against aggression against journalists, activists and academics,” said Ahmed Nejib Chebbi, founder of the Democratic Progressive Party. “And to tell the government that Tunisians’ hard-fought freedoms must not be compromised.”[...]
In “The West’s Imprudent Investment in Islamist Movements”, Raghida Dergham writes in-depth about the results of the “Arab Spring” revolution in Tunisia and what it has meant for secularists and women and why there is a huge protest once again in the streets of Tunis. To the detriment of the human rights of women, the Salafists and the Muslim Brotherhood have become the two major forces for governmental power, just as they have in Egypt. Here are some excerpts from her excellent report:
In Tunisia, some find strange the prominence of the Salafists, and there are rumors of women being paid to wear the niqab and men to grow their beards. The Salafists and the Muslim Brotherhood have placed women at the forefront of their promotional and social strategy, not just with the aim of subjugating them, but also as an object of religious competition between them. They are making of women the defining feature of conservative society, dictating what they should wear, what they should study, how they should walk, and with whom they should mix. Women are in their opinion a commodity they have the right to make use of in the name of tradition. That is how their democracy is truncated and lacking – women have no civil rights, and they are second class citizens. Even in Tunisia, where the laws established by former President Habib Bourguiba are more progressive than those of any other Arab country, the laws have not yet been eliminated, but effective practices indicate that the laws are not being applied, and that fatwas are finding their way to become laws.
