Tunisia's historical commitment to women's rights is being used by Ben Ali as a smokescreen for the persecution they now suffer
Kamel Labidi
(Kamel Labidi is a Tunisian journalist and Middle East consultant for the committee to protect journalists)
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 25 August 2010
".....Tunisian women undoubtedly benefit from the pioneering personal status code, which abolished polygamy, instituted judicial divorce and required that marriage be based on mutual consent of the future husband and wife. Their enriching participation in the country's social and economic life is made possible by other groundbreaking reforms, also initiated by the late President Habib Bourguiba in the wake of independence from France in 1956.
Today, though, Tunisian women are not spared from the long and ruthless war on freedom of expression and association, of a kind unseen even under the French protectorate and which can no longer be camouflaged by the personal status code or Ben Ali's "achievements" or by western public relations firms.
The launch of this dirty war in the early 1990s coincided with new amendments to the personal status code and more rhetoric about Ben Ali's trumpeted commitment to women's rights, widely seen as an "attempt to project an image of modernity and democracy" while hiding another part of Tunisia's picture. The raging war at that time in neighbouring Algeria (between the military-backed government and armed groups infuriated by the cancellation in 1992 of the results of legislative elections the Islamists were poised to win) led many to overlook the merciless repression in Tunisia...."
Kamel Labidi
(Kamel Labidi is a Tunisian journalist and Middle East consultant for the committee to protect journalists)
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 25 August 2010
".....Tunisian women undoubtedly benefit from the pioneering personal status code, which abolished polygamy, instituted judicial divorce and required that marriage be based on mutual consent of the future husband and wife. Their enriching participation in the country's social and economic life is made possible by other groundbreaking reforms, also initiated by the late President Habib Bourguiba in the wake of independence from France in 1956.
Today, though, Tunisian women are not spared from the long and ruthless war on freedom of expression and association, of a kind unseen even under the French protectorate and which can no longer be camouflaged by the personal status code or Ben Ali's "achievements" or by western public relations firms.
The launch of this dirty war in the early 1990s coincided with new amendments to the personal status code and more rhetoric about Ben Ali's trumpeted commitment to women's rights, widely seen as an "attempt to project an image of modernity and democracy" while hiding another part of Tunisia's picture. The raging war at that time in neighbouring Algeria (between the military-backed government and armed groups infuriated by the cancellation in 1992 of the results of legislative elections the Islamists were poised to win) led many to overlook the merciless repression in Tunisia...."
No comments:
Post a Comment