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Ed Webb

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

newlinesmag.com/...ere-has-tunisian-politics-gone

Tunisia politics elections youth saied parties parliament activism civil_society

shared by Ed Webb on 15 Dec 22 - No Cached
  • 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 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.
  • 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 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.”
  • 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 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.
  • 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

Number of journalists imprisoned worldwide hits new record: RSF | Freedom of the Press ... - 0 views

www.aljazeera.com/...-worldwide-hits-new-record-rsf

RSF journalists prison violence death repression Iran China Russia

shared by Ed Webb on 14 Dec 22 - Cached
  • A total of 533 media professionals were imprisoned in 2022, up from 488 last year, the RSF’s Annual Press Freedom Review published on Wednesday found.
  • More than half are jailed in just five countries: China, which remains “the world’s biggest jailer of journalists” with 110, followed by Myanmar (62), Iran (47), Vietnam (39) and Belarus (31).
  • Among the 47 journalists currently in prison in Iran, 34 have been arrested since protests broke out in September over the death in custody of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini
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  • Eighteen media workers, including eight from Ukraine, are currently imprisoned in Russia
  • The RSF said nearly 80 percent of media professionals killed around the world in 2022 were “deliberately targeted in connection with their work or the stories they were covering”, such as organised crime and corruption cases.
  • The NGO awarded its Prize for Courage on Monday to Iranian journalist Narges Mohammadi, who has been repeatedly imprisoned over the past decade.
  • Three-quarters of jailed journalists are concentrated in Asia and the Middle East, said the RSF.
Ed Webb

Meta sued for $2bn over Facebook posts 'rousing hate' in Ethiopia | Social Media News |... - 0 views

www.aljazeera.com/...posts-rousing-hate-in-ethiopia

Ethiopia Tigray Kenya facebook meta violence algorithms moderation

shared by Ed Webb on 14 Dec 22 - No Cached
  • A lawsuit accusing Meta Platforms of enabling violent and hateful posts from Ethiopia to flourish on Facebook, inflaming the country’s bloody civil war, has been filed. The lawsuit, filed in Kenya’s High Court on Tuesday, was brought by two Ethiopian researchers and the Kenyan rights group the Katiba Institute.
  • Among the plaintiffs is Abrham Meareg, who said his father, Tigrayan academic Meareg Amare Abrha, was killed after Facebook posts referring to him using ethnic slurs were published in October 2021.
  • The lawsuit said the company failed to exercise reasonable care in training its algorithms to identify dangerous posts and in hiring staff to police content for the languages covered by its regional moderation hub in Nairobi.
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  • Meta’s independent Oversight Board last year recommended a review of how Facebook and Instagram have been used to spread content that heightens the risk of violence in Ethiopia.
  • echoes of accusations the company has faced for years of atrocities being stoked on its platforms, including in Myanmar, Sri Lanka, Indonesia and Cambodia.
Ed Webb

Al Saqi's landmark London bookshop to close its doors this month - L'Orient Today - 0 views

today.lorientlejour.com/...sing-its-doors-this-month.html

media books UK Britain London Arab ArabWorld publishing publishers

shared by Ed Webb on 05 Dec 22 - Cached
  • Al Saqi Books, the largest European bookstore specialized in Middle Eastern books, is closing its doors at the end of the month due to financial difficulties.
  • In 1983 and 1991, respectively, the team expanded their operations with two publishing houses — the English-language Saqi Books and Arabic-language Dar al Saqi, the latter headquartered in Beirut. Both publishers will remain in business after the bookstore closure.
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