So Tunisia Goes, So Goes the ME?

[California Girl]

So, Tunisia rather famously started this domino effect across a variety of countries in the ME... Egypt, Bahrain, Lybia, and the domino effect continues.

What next?

Let's take a look at how things are going in Tunisia....



A few hundred metres from the main mosque in the heart of Tunis’s old quarter lies Abdallah Guech Street, a red-light district which has thrived since the 19th century. Here, the Ottomans legalised and regulated prostitution — as they had in much of the rest of the Muslim world.
Uniquely, though, in the Arab world, the tradition in Tunisia endured. Every one of the country’s historic quarters boasts bordellos; even, most remarkably, Kairouan, Islam’s fourth holiest city after Mecca, Medina and Jerusalem.
In keeping with Tunisia’s deep-rooted secularism and unprecedented championing of Muslim women’s rights, the prostitutes carry cards issued by the Interior Ministry, pay taxes like everyone else and enjoy (along with their clients) the full protection of the law.


Read more: Sex, brothels and the REAL tyranny threatening the Arab world | Mail Online

Tunisia has a well educated, very secular society. Much like Egypt. It's a wonderful country.... and now, sadly, it's falling to radical Islamists. And Egypt is teetering on a similar scenario.

So, to those posters who mocked us as 'nay-sayers' and 'fear mongers' for speculating about how this would turn out.... what say you now? Still confident that the ME is gonna nurture the democracy that it's people wanted?

For the record, I hope that it does. But, those of us who live in the real world, know things often don't turn out the way we hope.

 

[waltky]

Granny says ya better watch out fer dem technocrats - dey'll shoot ya...

Tunisian PM says will form small technocrat government
6 Feb.`13

Tunisian Prime Minister Hamadi Jebali announced on Wednesday he will form a technocrat government.

"After the failure of negotiations between parties on a cabinet reshuffle, I decided to form a small technocrat government," Jebali said in a speech to the nation.

He said the ministers would not run for office but elections would subsequently be held as soon as possible.

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Tunisian opposition leader killed amid tensions
6 Feb.`13 — A Tunisian opposition leader critical of the Islamist-led government was gunned down as he left home Wednesday in the first assassination in post-revolutionary Tunisia, setting off anti-government riots that left downtown Tunis choked with tear gas and patrolled by armored vehicles.

The killing of Chokri Belaid, a 48-year-old lawyer, heightens tensions in the North African nation whose path from dictatorship to democracy has been seen as a model for the Arab world so far. Police used tear gas to disperse thousands of protesters who assembled in front of the Interior Ministry in the center of the capital to accuse the government of allowing the assassination to happen. At one point, an ambulance carrying Belaid's body drove in front of the ministry accompanied by protesters before they, too, were forced away.

The demonstrators gathered on the same broad, tree-lined boulevard where weeks of anti-government protests two years ago ousted Tunisia's long-time dictator — and the crowds Wednesday even chanted the same slogan: "The people want the fall of the regime!" Like two years ago, police soon resorted to tear gas, sending people running for the shelter of nearby buildings yelling "No to Ennahda" and "Ghannouchi assassin," referring to the moderate Islamist party and its leader, who dominate the elected government.

The city center was left deserted and littered with stones, guarded by police armored vehicles and patrolled by a tank from the national guard. Knots of riot police chased protesters through the elegant downtown streets. Elsewhere around the country, police responded to a protest in the coastal city of Sousse with tear gas, and Ennahda offices were attacked in several towns, according to Radio Mosaique and Radio Shems FM. Belaid, a leading member of a leftist alliance of parties known as the Popular Front, was shot as he left his house in the capital, Tunis, and was taken to a nearby medical clinic, where he died, the TAP state news agency reported. Interior Ministry spokesman Khaled Tarrouch called the assassination a "terrorist act" and said the politician had been shot point-blank several times.

The motive behind his killing is unclear. It comes as Tunisia is struggling to maintain stability and revive its economy. The revolution set off revolts across the Arab world and unleashed new social and religious tensions in this Mediterranean nation of 10 million. With the fall of the country's secular dictatorship, hardline Islamist groups have flourished and there were a string of attacks by ultraconservative Muslims known as Salafis against arts, culture and people they deemed to be impious.

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Exasperated ruling party quits Tunisian gov't. paving way for Islamists...

Tunisia: President's party quits government
Feb 10,`13 -- Tunisia's political crisis entered a new phase Sunday with an announcement that Cabinet ministers of the president's own party are quitting the governing coalition, which could force the ruling Islamists to compromise with the opposition.

Two years ago Tunisia threw off decades of dictatorship, sparking the Arab Spring uprisings across North Africa. But it is now facing its worst political crisis since then following the assassination of a prominent opposition figure last week. Many blamed the government's negligence, if not complicity, for the assassination, and days of rioting followed that have only just subsided. A political solution to the crisis remains elusive and the question remains whether Tunisia can avoid the kind of political chaos wracking its neighbors.

Veteran observers of Tunisia's political scene caution that the nation's well-earned reputation as a stable bastion of moderation risks being put to the test, if the ruling Ennahda party of moderate Islamists mishandles its response to Wednesday's assassination of opposition politician Chokri Belaid. "Tunisians can live without food, but they can't live without stability and calm," said Ali Dkhil, a Tunis-based journalist and long-time political observer. The killing of Belaid - who carried out the shooting remains unknown - was the culmination of months of deadlock between the opposition and the governing coalition of the moderate Islamist Ennahda Party and two secular parties.

Belaid, as well as many others in the opposition, alleged that the Islamists were relying on hired thugs to harass political figures they disagreed with, and negotiations to expand the ruling coalition had hit a deadlock. The coalition's failure to stem the country's economic crisis and stop the often-violent rise of hardline Salafi Muslims had also drawn fierce criticism, prompting the call to broaden the governing coalition. Following the assassination, Prime Minister Hamadi Jebali offered the compromise long sought by the opposition and said he would form a government of technocrats unconnected to political parties, to see the country through the crisis and to new elections. However, his party rejected his plan, saying they had been elected by the people and should continue to rule - highlighting the divisions not just between the government and the opposition, but within the governing party itself.

The announcement Sunday that Tunisian President Moncef Marzouki's secular party is quitting the coalition government in anger at Ennahda's handling of the country's crisis might in the end actually strengthen officials such as Jebali seeking a compromise, said North Africa analyst Riccardo Fabiani of the London-based Eurasia Group. "Now Ennahda no longer has a government coalition to kick out Jebali," Fabiani said, adding that as the other parties quit the coalition, that leaves the technocratic option as the only alternative. "Now Jebali has the upper hand. He's even stronger." Fabiani warned, however, that Ennahda, which he called "the most moderate Islamic party in the Arab world," might radicalize if it is pushed out of power and does poorly in upcoming elections. "Ennahda has moderated, but if they're out of government the hardliners of the party could play a different game," he said. "This could stir up increased tension on the street and lead to more violence."

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Clouds gather over bellwether Tunisia
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-21402778 - Ennahda supporters come out to rally behind their party in Tunis

"Are you aware of how much pressure there is on you to succeed?" I asked Tunisia's beleaguered Islamist leader, Rachid Ghannouchi, during an interview in Tunis in December. "Yes," he replied emphatically, with a visible sigh. He knows all too well the importance of Tunisia succeeding - for Tunisia most of all, but also for a region struggling to forge new relationships between Islamists and more liberal secular forces during a troubled transition from authoritarian rule to democracy. "A revolution is like an earthquake," explained the soft-spoken head of the Ennahda (Renaissance) Party, who is arguably the most powerful figure in Tunisia's increasingly fractious politics. "It takes time to form a new landscape."

'Very afraid'

Now Tunisia has been jolted by another powerful political earthquake. The brazen murder last Wednesday of outspoken liberal politician Chokri Belaid, the first political assassination since Tunisia's independence from France in 1965, sent shock waves across Tunisia, and beyond its borders. "We are very shocked and very afraid," his friend and colleague, Faycal Zemni, of the Modern Left Party told the BBC shortly after his death. "If Tunisia cannot succeed, who can?" has been the refrain across the region about the small, relatively homogenous North African country. Its comparatively high levels of education, relatively advanced social conditions, including the status of women, and a small, apolitical army, seemed to augur well for Tunisia's historic path.

Tunisia was the first in the region to peacefully oust its president, Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, the first to hold peaceful elections, the first to assemble a ruling troika among Islamists and secular leaders. Now Tunisia is engulfed by its most impassioned street protests since the heady days of January 2011. And there is a deepening crisis within the ruling coalition over how to respond to this brutal turn of events. Prime Minister Hamadi Jebali's call for a new government of technocrats has already been rejected by his own Ennahda party, which insists on a political government until new elections.

Ennahda, which had been widely seen as moderate and pragmatic, is now under unprecedented pressure. Outspoken opposition leaders, including Chokri Belaid, had been accusing the party of giving a "green light" to political assassinations. In what turned into a prophetic news conference the day before his murder, he warned of political violence. Ennahda officials have reacted angrily to accusations blaming the party for his murder. In a statement released on Saturday, they said "some rushed to accuse Ennahda Party and its leader Rachid Ghannouchi without any evidence, driven by blind hatred and the avoidance of revealing the real perpetrators". In recent months, Tunisia's growing political crisis was increasingly visible and, at moments, violent.

On a trip to Tunisia in December, we heard frequent condemnation of the growing role of shadowy "militias". And there were accusations from more secular-minded Tunisians that Ennahda party and the more hardline Salafists were one and the same. Militias refer to the Leagues for the Protection of the Revolution, neighbourhood watch groups that claim to be rooting out remnants of the old regime. They are accused of thuggery at opposition rallies and trade union marches. Ennahda officials insist the militias are not their creation, and condemn any violence. They also insist they have taken action against attacks by Salafists, everywhere from the American embassy to sacred Sufi shrines and art exhibitions deemed to be profane.

Unravelling

 

[zzzz]

Be careful what you wish for because what you may get could be worse than what you had.

In the rush of western nations jubilation of the mass uprisings it was generally assumed the people would embrace the western conception of government and rights. The failure to recognize the power vacuum that exists when a government falls and the home based Islamic radicalism that exists in North Africa and the Middle East was just a part of the problem. The people were not ready for democracy, if they ever will be, and the bribery, religious doctrines, tribal pettiness and other factors will continue to keep them controlled by a strongman. That strongman may be one leader, a religious dogma or crime lords.

To assume that these people will rise up and install a democratic government and for it to last is without getting hijacked is fantasyland.

 

[waltky]

Jebali resigns as Islamic extremism threatens to take over Tunisia...

Tunisia's Prime Minister Resigns
February 19, 2013 - Tunisia's prime minister resigned Tuesday amid a political crisis stemming from the assassination of an opposition political figure.

Prime Minister Hamadi Jebali submitted his resignation after his attempt to form a government of non-partisan technocrats failed.

His own Ennadha party, which dominates the government, did not support his attempt. Jebali announced his resignation at a news conference after meeting with President Moncef Marzouki, saying he vowed that if his efforts to create a new government failed he would quit.

Tunisia descended into political crisis after secular opposition politician Chokri Belaid was gunned down outside his home in Tunis earlier this month. Belaid's supporters accused Ennadha of being behind the killing, a charge the ruling party denies.

Tunisia's Prime Minister Resigns

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Fears Grow of Islamic Extremism in Tunisia
February 18, 2013 — Tunisian opposition groups continue to blame the assassination of party leader Chokri Belaid on extremist Muslims known as Salafists. They accuse the ruling Ennahda party of encouraging religious violence - a charge the government denies. But no matter who might be behind Belaid’s death, there is growing fear among moderate and secular Tunisians that extremism is on the rise.

Worshippers prayed and listened intently to the Friday's sermon among the ancient surrounds of the Al-Zaytuna mosque in Tunis last week. In a traditionally secular country, Tunisia's mosques are at the heart of a debate over the extent of extreme religion in society. Opposition groups blame Islamic extremists for the February 6 killing of party leader Chokri Belaid. Organizations known as the Leagues for the Protection of the Revolution are accused of carrying out an agenda of religious violence - attacking art galleries and harassing women who refuse to wear Islamic dress. Many critics claim they are backed by the ruling Ennahda party. It’s a charge Minister for Religious Affairs Laroussi Mizouri strongly denies.

Mizouri says the government condemns violence and any calls for violence. The vast majority of mosques in Tunisia are calling for unity, he says, as well as tolerance and the rejection of all kinds of discrimination and violence. But opposition groups point to videos posted on YouTube painting a different picture. One shows a preacher in the southern city of Zarzis calling for the head of Belaid. It was uploaded the day he was killed but its authenticity cannot be independently verified. Ali Zeddini of the Tunisian League for the Defense of Human Rights blames extremism on foreign influences.

Zeddini says Tunisians do not have a tradition of religious extremism. So the question of religion in Tunisia, he says, has never come up before. Zeddini says Tunisian people are a kind people, moderate, Mediterranean, and with a Malachite Islam which is tolerant and a long way from extremism. Among the flags at a pro-Ennahda rally in Tunis Saturday were the distinctive black and white banners of the ultra-orthodox Salafists. But rally organizer Bechir Khalfi says Ennahda is a tolerant party. He says Tunisians want to build tomorrow's Tunisia together and do not want to exclude anyone, not the extreme left nor the extreme right. He says people want to build a Tunisia for all.

But critics of the government say they fear for their lives. The studios of TV channel El Hiwar El Tounsi were vandalized last year and equipment stolen. Company president and presenter Taher Ben Hassine, a well-known critic of Ennahda, says he fears he will meet the same fate as Belaid. Hassine says he sent his wife and daughter to live in France because he knows extremists want to do something against him. He says he does not know when it will happen but has no doubt extremists want to harm him. Tunisia's government says episodes of violence are symptomatic of a country in transition. Critics say that Islamic extremists are attempting to silence the opposition through intimidation and murder.

Fears Grow of Islamic Extremism in Tunisia

 

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Another Tunisian opposition leader assassinated...

Tunisians Protest After Opposition Leader Assassinated
July 25, 2013 > Protests have erupted in Tunisia after the killing of outspoken opposition leader Mohamed Brahmi outside his house in the capital, Tunis, the second political assassination in the country this year.

Unknown gunmen shot Brahmi - who belonged to the nationalist and secular Popular Front party - several times early Thursday. The 58-year-old politician was a vocal critic of Tunisia's Islamist-led government and a member of the Constituent Assembly charged with drawing up the North African country's new constitution. After the killing, thousands of people protested outside the Interior Ministry in Tunis and a hospital where Brahmi's body had been taken. Similar demonstrations erupted in the southern town of Sidi Bouzid, the cradle of the Tunisian revolution, where protesters set fire to two local offices of the governing Ennahda party.

The moderate Islamist Ennahda, which rules in coalition with two secular parties, quickly condemned the killing. The chairman of the Constituent Assembly said Friday will be a day of mourning for Brahmi. Tunisia's largest labor union, UGTT, called for a general strike the same day to protest Brahmi's death.

The February assassination of another secular politician, Chokri Belaid, ignited the worst violence in Tunisia since the 2011 fall of autocratic president Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali and provoked a political crisis that nearly derailed the country's political transition. Brahmi's family and Tunisian rights activists swiftly charged that Ennahda was behind both murders.

The opposition has criticized Ennahda for not cracking down on Islamist extremists, and many members of Belaid's party hold the government responsible for his assassination. Tunisian officials say six suspects sought for Belaid's assassination are still on the run and their names will soon be revealed. Thursday's killing comes as Tunisia was celebrating the 56th anniversary of becoming a republic after gaining independence from France.

Tunisians Protest After Opposition Leader Assassinated

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TUNISIA: SAME WEAPON IN BOTH POLITICIANS' KILLINGS
Jul 26,`13 -- Tunisia's Interior Minister says the same weapon used to assassinate a leftist politician Thursday also used in an assassination in February.

Lotfi Ben Jeddou announced Friday at a press conference that ballistic examination of the bullets fired Thursday at Mohammed Brahmi showed they came from the same gun used to kill leftist opposition leader Chokri Belaid five months earlier. Two men on a moped shot Brahmi 14 times in front of his home as he was getting in his car. Belaid was killed in a similar fashion. Ben Jeddou said the same Islamist extremist cell behind Belaid's killing was behind Brahmi's assassination. The assassination has plunged the country into a political crisis, with the opposition calling for the dissolution of the government.

Tunisia braced for renewed protests and calls for the government to resign on Friday following the assassination of a second leftist politician this year in a fusillade of bullets. Thousands demonstrated around the country Thursday night, holding the ruling Islamist Ennahda Party responsible for the assassination and attacking local party headquarters. Police used tear gas in central Tunis and in the provinces to disperse the protests. The slaying of Mohammed Brahmi of the leftist Popular Current party raised fears of new chaos in the country that unleashed the Arab Spring. Tunisia is working toward enshrining a new constitution meant to lead the way to lasting democracy and so far has avoided the widespread violence and unrest in countries like Egypt and Libya.

Brahmi was a respected leftist politician and a strong critic of the Ennahda Party, which rules in a coalition with two other secular parties. There were no immediate claims of responsibility for his killing. His party told The Associated Press it is postponing his funeral, initially planned for Friday, fearing it could inflame supporters on an already tense day. The main trade union called for a general strike Friday, closing down the airport, public transportation and most government offices as a new coalition of civil society and opposition parties called for the dissolution of the government and the national assembly.

In a statement published by Mosaique FM, several left wing and liberal parties announced the formation of a National Salvation Front calling for civil disobedience and a sit-in outside the national assembly until it and the government are dissolved. There have also been reports of resignations by some members of the assembly, which was elected in October 2011 and charged with writing a new constitution and running the country. The constitution was expected to be completed and new elections held by the end of the year. The new opposition front is calling for the formation of a national unity government charged with finishing the constitution and holding new elections.

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Arab Spring heatin' up in Tunisia again...

THOUSANDS PROTEST GOVERNMENT AT TUNISIA FUNERAL
Jul 27,`13 -- Thousands of protesters chanting anti-government slogans joined a funeral march to lay to rest an assassinated Tunisian opposition politician, a display of the anger threatening the survival of a government once seen as a model in the region for the transition to democracy.

Adding to the tension, a bomb exploded in the early morning underneath a car at the port in Tunis outside a police station. Though there were no injuries, the rare attack helped deepen the sense of unease in in the North African country, where two opposition politicians have been gunned down in the last six months, apparently with the same gun.

Mohammed Brahmi's coffin was carried by soldiers to Jellaz cemetery and buried next to Chokri Belaid, a fellow politician who was killed in February. Brahmi's widow, five children and the army chief of staff accompanied the coffin on its route through the capital. "Down with the party of the Brotherhood," chanted mourners, referring to the ruling Ennahda Party's affiliation with the regional Muslim Brotherhood religious group. "The people demand the fall of the regime."

The latest assassination Thursday has exacerbated the distrust between the ruling coalition led by moderate Islamists and the opposition, which has demanded the dissolution of the government because of its failures to rein in Islamist extremists, turn around the economy and manage the transition to democracy. Speaking next to the grave, activist lawyer Nacer Laouini called on army chief of staff Gen. Mohamed Salah Hamdi to protect the people from the Islamists - a clear reference to the military coup in Egypt against the elected Islamist government. "The head of the army is here, we ask the army to be on the side of the people as it always has been and protect Tunisians against Ennahda," he said.

Tunisia's army, however, has shown little interest to involve itself in politics up until now, unlike its Egyptian counterpart.

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Army seals off Tunis square after rival protesters clash...

Party in Tunisian ruling coalition demands new government
29 July`13 - A secular party in Tunisia's ruling Islamist-led coalition demanded a unity government on Monday to defuse a deepening political crisis, hours after the army sealed a square in the capital where protesters had clashed.

Tensions have been mounting over opposition efforts to oust the government following last week's assassination of a leftist politician, the second such killing in six months. Soldiers blocked off the central Bardo square in Tunis, declaring it a "closed military zone" after pro- and anti-government protesters threw rocks at each other. The secular Ettakatol party called for the coalition led by the Islamist Ennahda party to step down. "We have called for the dissolution of the government in favor of a unity government that would represent the broadest form of consensus," Lobni Jribi, a party leader, told Reuters. "If Ennahda refuses this proposal, we will withdraw from the government."

The threat by one of its own allies will ratchet up pressure on Ennahda, which has resisted opposition demands for the government's fall, and could encourage further defections. Education Minister Salem Labyedh, an independent, has offered his resignation to the prime minister, local media said. Tunisians fear they may be plunging into one of the worst crises in their political transition since autocratic leader Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali was forced to flee by a 2011 uprising that sparked protests across the Arab world.

Security forces sealed Bardo square, located outside the transitional Constituent Assembly, with barbed wire and fencing. The assembly's head, Mustafa Ben Jaafar, belongs to Ettakatol. He has said it is only weeks away from completing a long-delayed draft constitution to be put to a referendum. The secular opposition, emboldened by the Egyptian army's ousting of an Islamist president this month, is now rejecting all concessions and reconciliation efforts by the government. It has called for the 217-member Constituent Assembly to be dissolved. In the last few days, 70 lawmakers have left the body and to set up a sit-in protest outside its headquarters.

In the southern city of Sidi Bouzid, angry protesters tried to storm municipal offices to stop employees from going to work, residents said, sparking clashes with Ennahda supporters. The army intervened to protect the offices and police fired tear gas, but residents said thousands of demonstrators were gathering in the southern city, the cradle of Tunisia's revolt. Opposition leaders say they might set up a rival "salvation government", an idea they will discuss later on Monday.

"DESTRUCTION OF THE STATE"

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Tunisia to Hold Elections by Dec. 17, Says PM
July 29, 2013 > Tunisia's prime minister says the government will not step down despite opposition demands. He also promises to finish the constitution by October and hold elections on Dec. 17.

Ali Larayedh gave a defiant press conference Monday that made clear the Islamist-led government would not give in to the mounting calls to dissolve the elected assembly and form a national unity government following a political assassination. Thursday's slaying of leftist politician Mohammed Brahmi plunged the country into a political crisis, with the opposition calling it a sign of the government's failure. As the birthplace of the Arab Spring, Tunisia's democratic transition is being closely followed.

Thousands of people angered by the assassination of an opposition politician demonstrated in front of Tunisia's national assembly early Monday to demand that the government resign and dissolve the legislature. Dozens of legislators, mostly from the opposition, have withdrawn from the assembly in protest, and Minister of Education Salem Labiadh submitted his resignation Monday. Tunisia's democratic transition, which is being closely watched throughout the region, has been threatened by the unrest.

The opposition, backed by the country's largest trade union and civil society groups, says Thursday's assassination of left-wing legislator Mohammed Brahmi demonstrates the government's failure to protect its citizens and that the opposition should form a new "national salvation" Cabinet to replace the government. Rachid Ghannouchi, leader of the Ennahda Islamist Party that runs the government, told The Associated Press that his movement is "open to all propositions," but he rejected the dissolution of the assembly, saying it "represents legitimacy of the ballot box since it was elected democratically."

Since an election in 2011, the Ennahda Islamist Party has led a coalition government with two secular parties that has been guiding this North African nation's rocky transition to democracy. The country's new constitution has nearly been completed, and elections are expected by year's end. On Thursday, Brahmi was shot 14 times outside his home in front of his family. The assassin, identified by the government as an Islamic extremist, sped off on a moped. The killing — which follows that of another left-wing opposition legislator, Chokri Belaid, in February — has plunged the country into a crisis.

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