Tunisia Follow

Fathi Chamkhi is a member of the Popular Front coalition, and Mokhtar Ben Hafsa is a school teacher and union activist. They spoke to Jaouhar Tonsy about the struggle for the Tunisian revolution.

Protests in Tunis confront the government over its inability to challenge neoliberalism, writes Jaouhar Bani

Jaouhar Bani and Anne Alexander look at what lies behind the new wave of revolt sweeping Tunisia

Judges in Tunisia struck last week against a threat to the independence of the judiciary. There was a split in their professional association. 

In Tunisia you cannot escape the revolution. On arrival at my hotel in Tunis the bell boy took the opportunity to update me on “el thawra” (the revolution) as we travelled in the lift. “There is progress,” he said “but it is going to take time.”

Tunisia saw huge protests on Saturday of last week to mark 40 days since the assassination of opposition politician Chokri Belaid in February.

The Tunisian revolution began two years ago this month—and set in motion a wave of revolt across North Africa and the Middle East.

Workers in Tunisia have been protesting, and in some places striking, against the privatisation of factories that were nationalised during the revolution.

Things never stand still in Tunisia. In the past weeks exiled dictator Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali was sentenced, in his absence, to ten years imprisonment for unlawful killing. He is hiding from justice in Saudi Arabia.

Thousands of protesters flooded the streets of Tunisia’s capital Tunis on Saturday to protest against the government.

The general union in Tunisia, the UGTT, has been the only counter-power to the regime. But under Ben Ali it became very tame and the leadership very corrupt.

Looking back, I see that the movement that came to overthrow Zine El Abidine Ben Ali started in 2008. There was a very big intifada—an uprising in the mining basin in the south of the country.