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Ed Webb

Tunisia's Nabil Karoui launches hunger strike against 'illegal' extension of pre-trial ... - 0 views

www.middleeasteye.net/...-extention-pre-trial-detention

Tunisia media politics law judiciary parties

shared by Ed Webb on 07 Jun 21 - Cached
  • Former Tunisian presidential candidate and media mogul Nabil Karoui has entered a hunger strike in protest against his continued "illegal" detention, his lawyer said in a news release.  Lawyer Nazih Souii said Karoui refused on Monday to sign a document acknowledging the extension of his pre-sentencing detention during a meeting with a judge overseeing his case at the country's judicial finance office
  • Karoui, president of Tunisia's Qalb Tounes party, was arrested in December on charges of money laundering and tax evasion. Arrested in 2019 as well, Karoui spent most of that year's presidential campaign in jail on the same charges.
  • Karoui was found guilty of "financial corruption" on 24 December but has yet to receive a sentence. He has a right to an appeal, but it is not clear whether one has been filed.  On Monday, Karoui, who has insisted that his detention is purely political, said he would refuse to go willingly back to prison, announcing a "sit-in" at the judge's office following news of his extended detention.  Karoui launched a hunger strike on Friday that he plans to continue, his lawyer said. 
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  • Other politicians have often accused Karoui of corruption, and cases have been opened against him, as well as his Nessma TV channel
  • Karoui founded the Qalb Tounes party, which came second in 2019's legislative vote, just ahead of that year's election cycle. The party is an ally of the Islamist-inspired Ennahda party, which holds the most seats in parliament
Ed Webb

Tunisian MPs begin hunger strike over violence in parliament | Middle East Eye - 0 views

www.middleeasteye.net/...liament-violence-hunger-strike

Tunisia parliament women politics corruption

shared by Ed Webb on 14 Jan 21 - Cached
  • Four Tunisian MPs have begun a hunger strike in protest against a brawl in parliament that left one of them unconscious.
  • A violent brawl between representatives of Tunisia’s rival political parties erupted on 7 December during a session within the women's committee overseeing issues related to women workers. The violent scenes sparked public outrage and led to an online campaign calling on President Kais Saied to dissolve parliament.
  • Previous comments made by al-Karama coalition MP Mohamed Afess, allegedly referring to women's rights as debauchery and suggesting that single mothers were prostitutes or had been raped, is believed to have provoked the incident.
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  • Parliament Speaker Rached Ghannouchi condemned the incident. However, Abbou has accused Ghannouchi of encouraging a “culture of violence” with his "inertia", and has vowed to continue her hunger strike “until the head of parliament assumes his responsibilities” and publishes a “statement condemning the violence and the aggressors".
  • “We cannot entrust the interests of Tunisians to this assembly, which is full of smugglers and tax evaders," she said, referring to the president of the Qalb Tounes Party, Nabil Karoui, who has been implicated in cases of money laundering and tax evasion, as well as the head of the al-Karama bloc, Seif Eddine Makhlouf, also accused of tax evasion.
  • between November 2019 and July 2020 there were a number of attacks against female politicians at the assembly, including misogynistic remarks and death threats
  • The Democratic bloc, which has 38 MPs and is supported by other blocs and a number of independents, has spent the last month holding a sit-in at the parliament to express fears over their safety there.
  • While Article 68 of Tunisia’s constitution states that “no civil or penal legal proceedings can be brought against a member of the Assembly of the Representatives of the People, nor the latter be arrested or tried, because of opinions or proposals expressed or acts carried out in connection with his parliamentary functions”, physical and verbal attacks are not protected by the parliamentary immunity enjoyed by MPs and are liable to legal proceedings. 
Ed Webb

Egypt increases food prices for second time in three months | Middle East Eye - 0 views

www.middleeasteye.net/...d-time-three-months-1814861743

Egypt economy prices food politics subsidies

shared by Ed Webb on 06 Feb 17 - No Cached
  • Egypt has increased the prices of subsidised sugar and cooking oil for the second time in three months, amid rising inflation and a struggling economy.The decision, announced last week, increased the price of subsidised sugar by 14.3 percent – from seven to eight Egyptian pounds a kilo (about 40 cents), and increased the price of subsidised oil by 20 percent, from 10 to 12 Egyptian pounds.Last November, Egypt suffered a sugar crisis that increased tensions in the country.Egypt imports about one million tonnes of sugar annually, but an acute shortage of dollars has cut the imports by private traders, leaving the market short as the government scrambles to fill the gap
  • the government supports about 70 of its 90 million people through more than 20 million ration cards that give recipients access to subsidised goods
  • annual urban consumer price inflation had jumped for the second month since the Egyptian pound was floated last year to reach 23.3 percent in December from 19.4 percent in November
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  • “There are many other alternatives, including tax dispute settlements with business owners, the settlement of tax evasion cases, as well as stopping the corruption in various state institutions, saving the resources of officials’ extravagance, and finding economic development alternatives in various economic sectors,”
Ed Webb

Activists aim to punch holes in online shields of authoritarian regimes - SiliconValley... - 1 views

www.siliconvalley.com/...ci_14407148

censorship evasion filters activists Iran China USA

shared by Ed Webb on 20 Feb 10 - Cached
  • Haystack, a program to help Iranians wiggle past government filters as tensions between authorities and the opposition movement surge.
  • virtual slingshots to take on government censorship
Ed Webb

Mistrust of elites fuels rise of Tunisia's presidential hopefuls | Tunisia | Al Jazeera - 0 views

www.aljazeera.com/...-hopefuls-191010201548585.html

Tunisia elections election opinion constitution presidency legislatures

shared by Ed Webb on 12 Oct 19 - No Cached
  • marginalised neighbourhoods like Cite Ettadhamen have become a key political battleground ahead of the country's presidential runoff on Sunday. In the hope of securing the votes of Tunisia's poor, candidates Kais Saied, 61 and Nabil Karoui, 56, have offered a vision of employment, education, healthcare and improved infrastructure
  • Amid a field of 26 candidates featuring a number of political heavyweights, the two self-styled political outsiders surprised the country by finishing in first and second place in last month's first round
  • Saied, a law professor who has kept a low profile throughout the campaign and whose supporters see as embodying anti-elitism, ran without the backing of a party and won 18.4 percent nationally
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  • Media tycoon Karoui, a populist figure who until Wednesday sat in jail on suspicion of money laundering and tax evasion, took 15.6 percent of the vote. He denies all the charges and says they are politically motivated
  • In Ettadhamen, Saied's humble persona and rejection of the political status quo propelled him to the top, with 21.7 percent of the first-round vote. Karoui, who founded a charity to alleviate poverty and whose Nessma TV channel has promoted his philanthropic activities, trailed in second place on 19.4 percent. Despite his personal wealth, his supporters see him as a liberal champion of Tunisia's poor
  • In a country that ranks as the 73rd most corrupt out of 180 states, according to the Economic Research Forum, mistrust of the political elite has become widespread.
  • 40 percent of Tunisia's unemployed have university degrees
  • it is still possible that Karoui will contest the results if he loses on Sunday - ushering in another period of political uncertainty. "Not only will the parliament be fractured and the government unstable, but the entire electoral mandate could be questioned as well,"
  • While Parliament drafts and votes on legislation, the president's mandate is limited to foreign affairs, defence and national security. But the language of the 2014 constitution remains relatively vague when it comes to setting out the jurisdiction of the president versus the head of government, the prime minister
  • "Given that there is no constitutional court to adjudicate between them, ultimately the distribution in power will be based on the personality of who occupies each position and how far they are willing to go to challenge one another,"
  • growing nostalgia for a strong, presidential system - a desire that is only likely to grow as the fractured parliament struggles to form a government - it is possible that the presidency will emerge as the stronger of the two executives
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