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Ed Webb

Where Has Tunisian Politics Gone? - New Lines Magazine - 0 views

  • In the final days of Tunisia’s 2011 revolution, Kram was among the neighborhoods where groups of disenfranchised youth took to the street calling for jobs, freedom and national dignity. A decade later, its streets filled once again with youth protesting police violence in January 2021.
  • the nation’s civic consciousness hasn’t dissipated, as many people have bemoaned, “but until it’s translated into a political movement capable of entering the Tunisian political scene, it won’t lead to any substantial change.”
  • Kram has three candidates running to represent it. By contrast, in Sherifa’s home district of La Goulette — the wealthiest municipality in the country, containing sea ports, airports and the capital’s main business district — there is only one: the former Member of Parliament Hichem Hosni.The same is true in 10 other districts in the country, six of which are in the capital. The seat is already allocated because only one candidate is running. The phenomenon is partly a result of political apathy and partly by design. In September, Saied rewrote the country’s electoral law in what he said was a bid to level the playing field by moving away from a party list-of-candidates system and instead focusing on individual candidates. In order to stand in the election, a candidate had to collect 400 signatures notarized by the municipality — a method that should in theory have shortened the distance between voters and candidates, but in practice only increased it.
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  • The new electoral law — enacted after Saied ran on a staunch anti-corruption platform, rewrote the country’s constitution and put it to a referendum in July — also eliminates public funding for campaigns. Candidates are left to use their own money to run, or to raise donations from individuals, because funding by parties is also barred.
  • the new setup serves to weaken the legislative branch in a system with Saied and the presidency at its center. “The electoral law cannot be read separately from the new constitution. Everything has been done to prevent parliament from playing a real political role and from acting as a balancing power.”
  • “I took part in the revolution. I am a citizen, but this country does not treat me as such. I have decided not to vote,” she said. She knows the exact figures for how much inflation rises monthly, and the increases in the prices of taxis, bread and gasoline. Yet “for the first time,” she says, she doesn’t “even know the names of the candidates” running for parliament in her district.
  • The political life of the capital and state institutions feels too far removed from the everyday life of the young people of Kram. “We only know the police,” complain the young Cinevog regulars. They consider themselves to be “anti-politics,” though they are far from apolitical.
  • A new law forbids candidates from speaking with foreign journalists
  • “Where is the state?”
  • The disinterest in the ballot box and rejection of politics in its institutional forms, then, do not necessarily correspond to a depoliticization of Tunisian society. Many of the activities carried out by young activists and civil society constitute an alternative way of doing political education at the local level. With increasingly stringent controls on NGO funding, however, many small associations find themselves in a tight corner and fear for their future, including Mobdiun, which benefits from a certain amount of European funding.
  • “Many would try to leave for Europe, but here we create an alternative.”
  • “I stopped on the way to school to look at this empty wall, without the candidates’ posters, and I thought it said so much.”
Ed Webb

Iran strengthens political, economic hold over Iraq - Al-Monitor: Independent, trusted ... - 0 views

  • Sanctions-hit Iran is consolidating its hold over neighbouring Iraq, an economic lifeline where pro-Tehran parties dominate politics
  • During a visit to Tehran late last month, Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani and Iranian officials urged greater bilateral cooperation in all fields.He thanked Iran which provides gas and electricity -- around one-third of Iraq's needs -- and added this would continue until Iraq was self-sufficient.His country is already the number one importer of Iranian goods.
  • "Iraq is contested by the United States and Iran, with Turkey in third place in the north,"
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  • Iran's influence can also be seen through its links with Iraq's Hashed al-Shaabi, a former paramilitary force made up mainly of pro-Iran militias that have since been integrated into the regular forces.
  • Last month, Iraq's government handed the Hashed control of a new public company, endowed with around $68 million in capital.The Al-Muhandis firm's mission in oil-rich but war-ravaged Iraq is "provincial rehabilitation and development: infrastructure, housing, hospitals, factories",
  • In November, Iraqi Foreign Minister Fuad Hussein said it was "not fair" to consider his coalition government "an attachment" to Iran's.The Iraqi Kurdish diplomat pointed to its multi-party and multi-confessional make-up as showing "balance" between the different forces.But pro-Iran parties appear to now have free rein, after rival Shiite leader Moqtada Sadr tried for months to name a prime minister and prevent Sudani's appointment.
  • the United States still remains present, with around 2,500 US troops stationed in Iraq as part of ongoing efforts to combat the Islamic State group.
  • Washington monitors Iraq's banking system to ensure Iran is not using it to evade existing restrictions, and US influence is present via "the threat of financial sanctions"."The United States is staying in Iraq so as not to totally abandon the country to Iran,"
Ed Webb

The dwindling promise of popular uprisings in the Middle East - 0 views

  • The scenes emerging from Iran today elicit a mix of reactions across a region still reeling from the dark legacy of the “Arab Spring,” which itself came on the heels of the “Green Movement” protests in the wake of Iran’s 2009 presidential election. Many Arabs cannot help but recall the sense of hope that reverberated from Tunisia to Yemen, only to be shattered by unyielding repression, war, and the resurgence of authoritarianism. Subsequent protest waves, including those that began in 2019 in Lebanon, Iraq, and Sudan, were similarly met with brutality, co-optation, and dissolution.
  • Over a decade on from the Arab uprisings, the path toward democracy and freedom for youth across the Middle East has become more treacherous than ever, as liberation movements find themselves fighting against stronger, smarter, and more entrenched regimes that have adapted to modern challenges to their domination.
  • Technologies that many hoped would help to evade state censorship and facilitate mobilization have been co-opted as repressive surveillance tools.
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  • many of the region’s youth have become immobilized by revolutionary fatigue left by the tragic, violent trauma of the Arab Spring’s aftermath
  • Breakthroughs in surveillance methods are allowing intelligence outfits across the Middle East to infiltrate just about every crevice of civil society, making it almost impossible to communicate or organize without the government’s knowledge. Some of the most sinister of these weapons have been manufactured in Israel, which has emerged as a leading global exporter of surveillance technologies that are now being deployed against oppressed populations worldwide.
  • The prospect of acquiring dystopian surveillance tech like Pegasus has become a driving motive for authoritarian Arab leaders in their rush to normalize relations with Israel, against the will of their people
  • While arming themselves with the latest repressive tools, autocratic regimes across the Middle East continue to be encouraged by their external benefactors to prioritize security and foreign interests at the expense of democracy and human rights at home
  • with the United States declining as a global hegemon, authoritarians are selling their allegiances to the highest bidder, with human rights, democracy, and accountability falling further by the wayside.
  • Since 2011, Russia has doubled down on its support for some of the most brutal regimes in the region.
  • About 60 percent of the region’s population are under 25 years old, and the dire socio-political and economic conditions that much of the Middle East’s youth face have changed little since the thwarted revolutions of 2011. Youth unemployment has, in fact, worsened over the past decade, increasing from 23.8 percent in 2010 to 27.2 percent in 2020. The lack of opportunities continues to fuel brain drains and mass migration across the region.
  • dictators driven by paranoia have continued to hollow out civil society, ensuring that no viable political alternative to their rule exists. Press freedom across the region has declined drastically; Egypt, for example, has become one of the world’s top jailers of journalists since President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi came to power in a military coup in 2013. In Tunisia, President Kais Saied has undone many of the country’s democratic advances by dissolving the government and enhancing his powers through a new constitution.
  • This aggressive trend has intensified in Palestine, too. Following the 2021 Unity Intifada, Israeli forces arrested hundreds of political activists and are now stepping up efforts to target civil society and human rights groups that expose Israeli war crimes and rights violations. Meanwhile, the Palestinian Authority has entrenched its role as a subcontractor of the Israeli occupation, stepping up arrests of political activists and resistance fighters alike across the West Bank at Israel’s behest.
  • A recent study by The Guardian and YouGov found that although a majority of respondents in Sudan, Tunisia, Algeria, Iraq, and Egypt do not regret the uprisings, more than half of those polled in Syria, Yemen, and Libya say their lives are now worse
  • By shutting down spaces for Iranians to realize their imagined future, Iran’s leaders have ensured that any substantial transfer of power will be violent
Ed Webb

Tunisia's LGBTQ scene celebrates Mawjoudin Queer Film Festival - Al-Monitor: Independen... - 0 views

  • “Daring to organize and host an event dedicated to the question of gender identity and the reality of queer people is after all a militant act,” Aouini said. The MQFF took place on the backdrop of a reversal of Tunisia’s hard-won democratic gains following a year of drastic moves by Saied that expanded presidential powers since his power grab on July 25, 2021, effectively taking the country — once the Arab democratic exception — back to one-man rule.
  • “The fact that we succeed in having a queer festival in an Arab Muslim country is an achievement,” Jerbi told Al-Monitor. “Coming to this event and meeting people like me is in itself something. We are not here to seek attention; we are here to just see our rights respected.”
Ed Webb

Journalists tell CPJ how Tunisia's tough new constitution curbs their access to informa... - 0 views

  • CPJ could not meet with Hajji at the Al-Jazeera office because it has remained closed since police raided the bureau on July 26, 2021, confiscating all broadcasting equipment and forcing all staff to leave the building. The raid came less than 24 hours after Tunisia President Kais Saied fired Prime Minister Hichem Mechichi and suspended parliament, granting himself sole executive power. A new constitution, approved by a largely boycotted voter referendum nearly a year later, on July 25, 2022, codified Saied’s nearly unchecked power, upending the checks and balances between the president, prime minister, and parliament provided by the 2014 constitution.
  • at least four journalists have been arrested, and two were sentenced to several months in prison by military courts. Many others have been attacked by security forces while covering protests.
  • “We found that 2022 was one of the worst years in terms of press freedom violations since we began monitoring them six years ago,” Khawla Chabbeh, coordinator of the documentation and monitoring unit at the National Syndicate of Tunisian Journalists (SNJT), a local trade union, told CPJ in a meeting. On July 25, 2022, the day of the constitutional referendum, “we monitored the most violations against journalists that has occurred in a single day,”
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  • Following the constitutional referendum on July 25, Tunisia approved the new constitution, replacing what was considered one of the most progressive in the Arab world. The new document is missing many of the articles that had guaranteed the protection of rights and freedoms. It eliminates several constitutional commissions created under the 2014 constitution, such as the Human Rights Commission, which investigated human rights violations, and the Independent High Commission for Audiovisual Communication, the country’s media regulatory body.
  • “The 2014 constitution protected the freedom of the press, publication, and expression. However, the new constitution does not mention anything on the independence of the judicial system, which is one of the few things that could guarantee fair trials when violations against journalists or the press occur,” Mohamed Yassine Jelassi, president of the SNJT, told CPJ in a meeting. “And now, with the lack of independent constitutional bodies, we are going to start dealing again with a Ministry of Communications that takes its orders straight from authorities.”
  • Jelassi told CPJ that the new constitution further diminishes the protection of journalists and the freedom of publication by using vague language that could lead to the conviction of journalists on charges unrelated to journalism. Under the 2014 constitution, authorities were prohibited from interfering with any journalistic content, since it would violate the freedom of publication. By contrast, the new constitution protects the freedom of publication only if it does not harm “national security,” “public morals,” or “public health,” which are all defined by the law.
  • while Al-Jazeera has all its paperwork, licenses, and taxes in order, the office remains closed. As of early September, police were still heavily present in front of the bureau’s building
  • “Most private [and non-profit] news organizations are partially funded by foreign groups or governments,” said Khadhraoui. “Without these funds, it will be impossible to pay staff salaries, and therefore there won’t be any independent press sector in Tunisia.”
Ed Webb

Dystopian Modernity: Saudi Arabia's 'Revolutionary' New City is Not All that it Seems -... - 0 views

  • The Line, which is estimated to house five million people upon completion, is the centrepiece in the Saudi Arabia 2030 initiative – a programme of political reform intended to reduce the Kingdom’s dependency on oil.  Yet, the initiative has courted controversy, as its development entails encroaching on land currently occupied by the indigenous Huwaiti tribe – an estimated 20,000 of whom will face eviction as a result of The Line’s completion. Indigenous activist Alia Hayel Aboutiyah al-Huwaiti told the Guardian that “for the Huwaitat tribe, NEOm is being built on our blood, on our bones… it’s definitely not for the people already living there! It’s for tourists, people with money. But not for the original people living there”.
  • a separate legal system answerable to Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman and the implementation of a data-gathering regime including facial recognition technology, is reminiscent of China’s dystopian social credit system.
  • The Saudi state has a long and sordid history of violently suppressing indigenous settlements and homes to facilitate the development of economic and infrastructure projects.
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  • In April, activist Abdul Rahim Al Huwaiti was executed by Saudi special forces following his vocal opposition to the construction of NEOM
  • The predominantly Shi’ite town, once home to around 30,000 residents, was bulldozed to make way for a commercial hub adorned with expensive plazas and shopping outlets, as part of Saudi Arabia’s dual mission of economic development and repression of religious and racial minorities.
  • migrant labourers, who comprise approximately 80% of the private sector workforce, are subject to excessive control by bosses, who can implement measures such as delays in wages, forced labour and the confiscation of passports. 
  • Mohammed bin Salman claims that it will be the world’s “most liveable city by far”, as high-speed rail capacity will reportedly make cars obsolete, renewable energy will power its infrastructure, and 95% of land will be conserved for environmental protection.  Yet, Saudi Arabia has previously failed to implement its grandiose, ill-substantiated environmental pledges.
Ed Webb

U.S. Needs to Look Beyond Russia for Disinformation Culprits | Time - 0 views

  • Russian disinformation may come first to mind for interfering in U.S. politics, but some of the most damning evidence of efforts to influence the American public leads to Washington’s allies in the Middle East. Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates are at the forefront of undermining democratic deliberation–from manipulating the impact of Donald Trump’s tweets, to tricking editors across the world into publishing propaganda.
  • The FBI in 2019 found evidence that employees at Twitter’s San Fransciso headquarters, groomed with bribes such as luxury watches, were co-ordinating with members of the Saudi royal family to obtain private information from Twitter users. In August 2022, a jury found one of these men guilty. Two others couldn’t be tried because they were in Saudi Arabia.
  • One of the most audacious deception operations appeared to be connected to the UAE. Between 2019 and 2021, op-eds that supported the foreign policy position of the UAE, Saudi, and the U.S. administration under Trump began appearing in numerous well-known U.S. outlets, such as Newsmax, The National Interest, The Post Millennial and the Washington Examiner. The catch: The journalists writing them did not actually exist.
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  • Cambridge Analytica’s parent company, SCL Social Limited, worked with the UAE to create a social media advertising campaign attacking Qatar, a Gulf rival that’s home of the largest U.S. military base in the region. Though better known its use of “soft power” through projects like Al Jazeera, Qatar has also been reported to use disinformation, as well as allegedly hacking the email of the Emirates’ powerful ambassador to Washington.
  • the Emiratis worked with ex-NSA spies to hack the devices of U.S. citizens. And both Saudi Arabia and the UAE are among the biggest customers of NSO, the Israeli firm that sells the spyware Pegasus, which they have used to target dozens of activists, journalists and academics
  • In 2011, during the heady days of the Arab Spring, social media and digital technology was touted as the force that would help liberate the region from authoritarian rule and bring democracy. Now, authoritarian regimes in the Gulf, along with Western companies and expertise, are using digital technology and social media to try and hack democracy wherever they find it, including in the U.S. The effect is clearest, however, in the Middle East. With critics silenced through incarceration, surveillance, torture, or death, opposition voices are increasingly fearful of self-expression, meaning that the digital public sphere is simply a space to praise the regime or engage in banal platitudes.
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