Over 120,000 Afghan women and 60,000 children admit to being addicted to drugs. Credit: Anand Gopal/IPS

By Giuliana Sgrena
KABUL, May 24 2013 (IPS)

Located on a narrow street in a quiet neighbourhood in Kabul, the Sanga Amaj Women’s Treatment Centre is the only one of its kind in Afghanistan: named after the 22-year-old journalist who was assassinated in 2007, the facility caters exclusively to Kabul’s massive population of female drug addicts.

Out of respect for its residents’ privacy, the centre does not disclose its location and strictly monitors all visits. Here, a kind and professional staff dressed in white aprons attend to 25 women and an equal number of children between the ages of five and 11who spend most of their time in a cosy playroom filled with toys.

The entire facility is split between two floors, housing dormitory-style rooms with 12 beds each and an array of common rooms.

The clean, pleasant settings belie the desperate circumstances of the building’s occupants.

Most of the women here say they started out using opium and hashish, but turned to harder drugs like heroin in order to cope with “economic hardships, family violence, or psychological problems,” Storai Darinoor, one of the young coordinators at the facility, told IPS.

“In many cases husbands introduce their wives to drugs, often forcibly. When either one of the parents are addicts, the children generally become addicts, too,” she added. Women and children tend to favour oral intake of drugs, either eating or smoking their fix, but one 11-year-old in the centre was found to have been using injections.

Though the female residents declined to speak with IPS, staff members said that patients have admitted to taking heroin as “medicine” to ease the stresses of daily life.

“Young children are fed opium by their mothers to keep them quiet, while older children, in addition to consuming drugs themselves, provide drugs for their mothers,” according to Storai.

She says 80 percent of female addicts turned to drugs upon returning to the country from Iran and Pakistan, where they lived as refugees during the Taliban’s reign from 1996 to 2001.

The Sanga Amaj Centre receives funding through the drug advisory programme of the Colombo Plan – a U.S.-backed regional initiative designed to coordinate strategies for reducing demand and supply of narcotics in Asia – but only enough to provide the most basic therapy.

“Treatment typically lasts 45 days,” Dr. Huma Mansouri, director of the facility, tells IPS, beginning with a 10-day period of detoxification.

“After that we proceed to administering daily doses of buprenorphine (a semi-synthetic opioid) since we do not have access to methadone.” When this is inadequate to stop severe withdrawal symptoms – crying, screaming or beating their heads against a wall – staff members resort to “water therapy”: short, cold showers that help patients to relax.

After the first 10 days, medication is limited to daily doses of vitamins. The rest of the time in the facility is spent on rehabilitation, attending awareness sessions on the harmful effects of drug use and classes on different subjects including health, psychology and religion, “because drug use is forbidden in Islam,” Mansouri said.

The women then move into a three-month vocational programme, learning sewing and computer skills, which open up employment opportunities once they leave the centre.

One of the facility’s 12 staff members is then assigned to “follow” the women for a two-year period, making weekly house visits, offering support or advice, and providing counselling free of charge.

Not all of the women have a place to go after being discharged. Some are abandoned by their families as a result of their addiction and have no way of supporting themselves. Whenever possible, the centre hires its old patients to work as cleaners in the facility.

To date, the centre has treated over 1,100 women, of which “only 145 have relapsed,” according to Storai.

But the vast majority of women in Afghanistan have no access to such treatment, and often live out their days in a cycle of violence and poverty made worse by their addiction.

According to a survey conducted by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) in 2010, the last time such data were gathered, roughly one million Afghans between the ages of 15 and 64 were addicted to drugs, or three percent of the population of 35 million.

An estimated 120,000 of these addicts are women, and over 60,000 are children.

Experts attribute these dismal figures to numerous factors, including a 40-percent unemployment rate and an increase in poppy cultivation: in 2012, an estimated 154,000 hectares of farmland were dedicated exclusively to poppy.

The UNODC 2013 Afghanistan Opium Risk Assessment says cultivation in the main poppy growing areas – like the southern regions of Helmand and Kandahar, and northern provinces like Herat, Faizabad and Badakhshan – is expected to rise even further in the coming years.

The country, which used to supply about half of Europe’s heroin in 2001, now accounts for a full 90 percent of the global supply of opiates, making it the world’s largest producer by far. An estimated 26 percent of the country’s GDP comes directly from the narcotics trade, which the U.N. report says is “strongly” linked to economic insecurity and a lack of agricultural aid.

Though Afghanistan has a long history of opium use, with many families in the north taking moderate doses in order to work longer hours, addiction levels did not reach such heights until the U.S.-led invasion in 2001 forced warring mujahideen groups out of the cities and into rural areas, where they took over vast poppy fields and established “production centres and laboratories along the northern border,” Dr. Tariq Suliman, director of ‘Nejat’, one of the few drug rehabilitation centres in Kabul, told IPS.

Located in the impoverished Karte Char neighbourhood in western Kabul, Nejat sits in the middle of a huge concentration of drug users, who congregate in parks, crouch under bridges or trees, or even just sit in the middle of the road to get their fix.

While heroin is the most widely used drug – available at virtually every street corner for six dollars a gramme – hashish and opium are also readily available. For a population with an average income of just 500 dollars a year, this is a steep price to pay, and often pushes families deeper into poverty.

The government’s ministry of counter narcotics has no funds with which to implement prevention, treatment or rehabilitation programmes, leaving the onus for this work entirely on the shoulders of civil society, laments Suliman.

Experts say women bear the brunt of addiction, partly because religious and cultural taboos preventing women from consuming drugs mean that few actively seek treatment for fear of being stigmatised.

Female drug addicts here are a kind of “hidden population”, secreting themselves away in their homes, which, in turn, breeds a culture of violence against children and pushes the latter closer towards addiction.

Experts say that unless the government allocates more money for the creation of facilities like the Sanga Amaj Centre, the thousands of female addicts have no hope of a better future.

A call for freedom in Tunis. Credit: Lassad Ben Achour/IPS.

By Giuliana Sgrena
TUNIS, Apr 14 2013 (IPS)

Ela, a young Tunisian woman whose face is barely visible behind her niqab, says she has spent five months protesting a university ban against the religious garment in the classroom “to no avail”. On the other side of the capital Tunis, a group of students decked out in djellabas and keffiyehs (traditional Tunisian costumes) with the Tunisian flag wrapped around their shoulders, perform the Harlem Shake: a dance form that originated in the United States in the early 1980s but has recently gone viral online as a popular meme.

The two scenes represent the latest battle in Tunisia, between ultra-religious Salafists and staunchly secular Tunisians who say the rise of Islamists after the fall of dictator Zine El Abidine Ben Ali in January 2011 represents an erosion of the gains made during the revolution.

Ela, clad from head to toe in black, represents the conservatives’ desire for reverence and conformity, while the “protest dancers” symbolise the new generation that was born out of the uprising, a vivid, colourful and diverse mix of people who say culture has become the new frontline in the ongoing fight for democracy in post-revolutionary Tunisia.

“Dancing is not only a non-violent protest, the body is itself an expression of liberation and of well-being."
Recently, the rap singer who goes by the name ‘Weld el 15’ was condemned to two years in prison in retaliation for his song Boulicia Kleb (meaning “policeman are dogs”), which was viewed over 650,000 times on YouTube. The music video’s director and lead actress each received six-month sentences.

“The police often use the law against drugs to arrest singers, in particular rap singers, because of the use of marijuana,” Adnen Meddeb, a young film-maker who shot the revolution from inside Tunisia, tells IPS.

Oussama Bouajila and Chahine Berriche, two graffiti artists from the group Zwelwa (meaning “the poor”) were arrested on Nov. 3, 2012 for the mural they painted on the walls of the industrial city of Gabes, entitled, “The people want rights for the poor”. Their verdict was released on Apr. 10: each was charged a 50-dollar fine for “defacing government property” and ordered to clean the walls.

Zwela has denounced the artists’ trial as a “political trial, which reminds us of the methods used under Ben Ali.”

The Ministry of Interior has emerged as one of the most common sites of cultural resistance where, every Wednesday, a group of activists stage a sit-in to protest the Feb. 6 assassination of Chokri Belaïd, leader of the leftist Popular Front opposition coalition.

A demonstration in honour of slain opposition leader Chokri Belaid in Burghiba Avenue in Tunis. Credit: Giuliana Sgrena/IPS

“Every Wednesday we sit here to force the ministry to answer the question: ‘Who killed Belaïd?’,” Amor Ghadamsi, painter and general secretary of the Tunisian Artists Trade Union, tells IPS.

He says the assassination was the “gravest incident in a climate of mounting violence, and it shocked the country. Before this, people did not realise the extent of the danger they faced. Now we want the Tunisian authorities to investigate and find the perpetrators,” he stressed.

The artists took up this weekly demonstration after a statue they produced to honour Belaïd’s death, erected outside the slain leaders’ home, was destroyed by the Salafists. “Culture is our resistance now,” Ghadamsi said, referring to the widespread use of graffiti, and the proliferation of political rap with lyrics that honour the revolution.

The choice to hold the protest outside a government building symbolises a growing distrust with the ruling Ennahda Party, which contested – and won – the country’s first free elections in October 2011 on a moderate, secular platform.

But the group has come under fire for allowing religious extremists to operate with impunity.

One of these extremist groups is the League for the Protection of the Revolution (LPR), an association that is widely believed to have close ties to the  government and has been involved in many confrontations with opposition parties and activists with the Union General Tunisienne du Travail (UGTT), the country’s leading trade union.

LPR members claimed responsibility for the fatal beating of Lotfi Nakbou, a leader of the Nida Tounes party in the southern Tunisian city of Tataouine in October 2012, and for the destruction of the statue of Belaid.

“These people work in the name of Ennahda. They are people from Ennahda, close to Ennahdha, former convicts hired by Ennahda, and people whose consciences Ennahda has bought,” Jilani Hammami, spokesperson of the Workers’ Party, insisted in an interview with Tunisia Live back in January.

Though the government has dismissed the claim, locals here point out that the LPR are never persecuted for their criminal actions. The UGTT has called repeatedly for the dissolution of the LPR to no avail.

With the government turning a blind eye to violence, scores of Tunisians feel they have no choice but to turn to immaginative, creative and non-violent protests.

Their staunch ally during the revolution, the Internet has resurfaced as a crucial tool in the cultural war, which activists say began in earnest on Mar. 25, 2012 when Salafist gangs attacked artists celebrating World Theatre Day on Bourguiba Avenue in central Tunis. Witnesses to that scene told IPS the police either assisted the mobs, or simply stood by.

Dances like the Harlem Shake and other cultural protest videos quickly go viral, sometimes even attracting the attention of the mainstream media.

Meanwhile young Tunisians have repeatedly “occupied” Bourguiba Avenue to commemorate the clashes that sparked this wave of cultural resistance, halting traffic by sitting in the middle of the street to read books in an act of defiance against state security forces.

In the same vein, a group calling itself Art Solution initiated the “I will dance in spite of everything” movement. Directed by Bahri ben Yahmed, the dancers perform in every possible public space they can claim: in front of the national theatre, in the Belvedere gardens, in Kasbah Square, but also in the poor outskirts of Tunis.

Often, on-lookers and passersby join the dancers, creating the feeling of the kind of spontaneous protests that were familiar sights during the early days of the revolt.

“Dancing is not only a non-violent protest, the body is itself an expression of liberation and of well-being,” commented the writer Jamila Ben Mustapha.

(END)

Tunisian families have begun to dread knocks on their doors, or late-night phone calls, fearing that the messenger will bear the news that their son has been smuggled out of the country to join the “jihad” in Syria.

Semi Ghesmi, a Salafist student and elected head of the National Students Union in Tunisia, supports what he calls the “jihad” in Syria. Credit: Giuliana Sgrena/IPS

Families here told IPS that they have no way of contacting their sons once they leave — whether by choice or coercion they will never know — for the warring nation nearly 3,000 miles away. At most, family members receive an inaudible telephone call from Libya, where the soon-to-be militants are trained, the muffled voice on the other end of the line saying a quiet and final goodbye.

After that point, no news is good news. If they are contacted again, it will only be an anonymous caller announcing the death of a son, brother or husband, adding that the family should be proud of their martyred loved one.

The next day, the family might find a CD, slipped under the door, containing filmed footage of the burial.

There are no reliable data on exactly when young Tunisian men began rushing to join the Free Syrian Army, currently engaged in a battle to depose Syrian president Bashar al-Assad, but experts and civil society activists are agreed on one thing: the number is increasing.

On Mar. 29, local sources reported that between 6,000 and 10,000 men have left the country, while the Algerian press say the number could be closer to 12,000.

Families tell IPS the self-proclaimed jihadists leave in secret, often under cover of darkness, and change their names en route so that Facebook and internet searches yield no results. They believe mosques and charity organisations serve as fronts for this “recruitment” process.

Widely considered the cradle of the Arab Spring, Tunisia has gained a reputation as a progressive country, bolstered by the strong democratic current that toppled former dictator Zine Abadine Ben Ali in January 2011. The election of the moderate Islamist party Ennahda in October 2011 further raised hopes that the country would stay on track towards a more inclusive future.

But beneath the moderate veneer, a strong ultra-conservative undercurrent remained, steered by Salafist-controlled mosques – like Fath, Ennassr, Ettadhamen, and the great mosque of Ben Arous located on the outskirts of Tunis – that are now serving as headquarters for the smuggling of fighters.

A true revolution is made by the people, not by jihadis coming from other countries.
The imams of these mosques often hail from the Gulf and are skilled at convincing young men – who run the gamut from poor, uneducated Tunisians, to wealthy professionals — that they must “help their Syrian brothers” in the “jihad” against Assad.

Charity organisations like Karama wa Horrya, Arrahma, Horrya wa Insaf, which provide basic humanitarian assistance to the poor, also play a role in this network that gathers able-bodied Tunisians, transports them to Libya and then, after a brief stop in Turkey, sends them onwards to the frontlines of the Syrian war such as the north-western border with Lebanon, and the city of Aleppo.

Young fighters’ first point of contact in Syria is with the Jabhat al Nusra (meaning the ‘Support Front for the People of Syria’), considered the most aggressively militant arm of the FSA.

Beyond these vague details, very little is known about the actual recruitment process. The only credible information comes from wounded jihadis who are sent back to Tunisia if their injuries have resulted in handicaps that render them unfit for battle. Most die in the fighting and those that return are often too afraid to speak of their experiences.

Tunisian youth, who played a crucial role in the 2011 revolution here, have conflicting views about the Syrian uprising, and their countrymen’s participation in it.

For some, like Semi Ghesmi, elected representative of the technological department of the National Student Union, Syrians are engaged in an outright jihad in the strictly religious sense of the term, meaning a battle between “good” Muslims and “kafirs”, or infidels. In this war, the FSA has the moral highground and must be supported.

Others like Nassira, a student at the Manouba University in Tunis, say the Syrian conflict “is not a revolution like the Tunisian one”. In her opinion, a true revolution is “made by the people, not by jihadists coming from other Muslim countries”. She favours the Tunisian model, which was dictated not by a small circle of extremists but by the majority of the people.

During the recent World Social Forum, held in Tunis from Mar. 26-30, the division between supporters and opponents of the Syrian rebels came to light when local participants burned FSA flags in the streets.

Jihadis – or racketeers?

Most families who spoke to IPS were too afraid to give their names, fearing reprisals. They suspect powerful and wealthy interests have a hand in the smuggling of fighters, since some families have received as much as 4,000 dollars in “payment” for each jihadi recruit.

Those who spoke to IPS under condition of anonymity believe the recruiters themselves also receive a fee. Many denounced the government for allowing this “business” in human lives to thrive.

A local journalist who has been investigating the process, but did not want to be identified by name, told IPS the government almost certainly makes money off this racket as well.

Experts believe Ennahda leader Rachid Ghannouchi’s statement, issued through the Ministry of Religion, that “we don’t suggest young people leave… but we have no right to prevent them” is tantamount to an admission that the government has no plans to put a stop to the practice, or apprehend those involved.

Observers find further proof of the government’s complicity in an agreement, signed in the Libyan capital Tripoli on Dec. 11, 2011 by Ennahda’s Ghannouchi; Burhan Ghalioun, former chief of the Syrian National Council (SNC); and Mustafa Abdel Jalil, former chairman of the Libyan National Transitional Council (NTC), outlining plans to send weapons, along with Tunisian and Libyan jihadis, to Syria. The contents of the agreement were leaked to the public last year.

Not content with recruiting only men, clerics have begun to urge women and girls – some as young as 14 years – to take up “jihad through marriage” by travelling to Syria to satisfy the sexual needs of anti-Assad forces.

The phenomenon picked up speed after a Saudi religious scholar named Mohamed al-Arifi issued a fatwa in December 2012 allowing the “temporary marriage”, sometimes lasting just a few hours, of young girls to Syrian insurgents. Though he has subsequently revoked the edict, following a public outcry, the practice continues.

Here again, numbers are impossible to pin down – but IPS has heard of several cases in the last three months of Tunisian teenage girls who have gone missing, which has sparked fears of a new form of religiously sanctioned sexual trafficking.

(END)

A crowd of police at street demonstrations in Algiers on Feb. 19, 2011. Credit: Giuliana Sgrena/IPS

By Giuliana Sgrena
ALGIERS, Jun 20 2012 (IPS)

The on-going hunger strike of nine Algerian court clerks, coupled with the government’s indifference to their demands for an independent labour union, have stirred debate about Algeria’s role in the Arab Spring, which many see as an incomplete attempt to overturn a deeply flawed political and economic system.

Despite the fact that the health of the six women and three men, who have been fasting for over a month now, are deteriorating rapidly, neither the government nor the justice ministry has shown any indication that they will meet the workers’ demands.

“The health conditions are getting worse every day, three women are now in the Rouiba hospital; all of them have lost ten percent of their weight, and suffer from pain in their muscles and bones,” Nassira Ghozlane, chairwomen of the Autonomous National Trade Union of Public Administrations Workers (SNAPAP), told IPS.

“Also doctors are being pressured by authorities (the government) that want to minimise the impact of the hunger strike,” she added.

The justice workers started their protest last February, after the Minister of Justice failed to implement an agreement to improve working conditions. To make matters worse, the government still prevents workers from organising independent unions to advocate for their rights.

Nevertheless the clerks decided to create their own trade union affiliated to the independent SNAPAP.

These striking clerks are just one example of nation-wide discontent, that is daily manifest in strikes and protests around the country.

Thus many are curious as to why the wave of dissent, which began in earnest early last year, has failed to yield results in a country that offers fertile ground for resistance.

Following the now landmark act of self-immolation that sparked the Arab Spring in Tunisia, the practice spread through Algeria as well. Meanwhile opposition parties, unions, human rights organisations and bloggers united to form the National Coordination for Democracy and Change (NCDC) to organise rallies every Saturday.

“The slogan under which protesters rallied was ‘Systeme Dégage’ (System Go Away) not only ‘Bouteflika (referring to Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika) Dégage’, because people knew that even if the president were to leave, nothing will change as the whole system is corrupted,” Nadjet Rahmani, one of the protesters, told IPS.

But protesters suffered a brutal crackdown, with 30,000 policemen and riot police surrounding the location of a May 1 demonstration and arresting numerous people last year.

Though government repression was swift, some observers believe the failure of the Algerian Spring is due more to memories of terror that still haunt the masses.

“We already had our revolution back in 1988. Although it was called the ‘couscous revolt’ (in reference to critical food shortages at the time) it was also a revolution for social justice, against the one party system, for democracy,” Cherifa Kheddar, chairwoman of Djazairouna (Our Algeria), an association of families of terrorism victims, told IPS.

“It was organised by trade unionists and activists, who were all put in jail and tortured. So the streets were occupied by Islamists, as (was the case) with the Tunisian and Egyptian revolts,” she added.

Elections following the 1988 revolt resulted in the victory of the Islamic Salvation Front. The Algerian army, supported at the time by large swathes of the population including women’s groups who rightly feared the outcome of an Islamic party victory, interrupted the election and opened the floodgates to a period of bloodshed in the country that claimed 200,000 lives.

Both the army and the Armed Islamic Groups (GIA) were responsible for the massive human rights violations that marked this dark period of Algeria’s history, in which 40,000 people were disappeared.

The Islamists clung to power for a year but even after they were ousted in 1992 they continued to threaten and kill anyone considered to be a non-believer – soldiers, politicians, women, intellectuals, teachers, hairdressers.

The period of terror only ended when then-president Bouteflika declared a national reconciliation programme that failed to persecute human rights violators or bring perpetrators of grave crimes to justice.

Exhausted by the wave of bloodletting, a majority of Algerians supported the presidential proposal, which effectively destroyed any substantial opposition for years to come.

As a result, the same tensions that plagued the country a decade ago are still very much alive today, with Islamists and secular people living side by side in simmering hostility.

Added to these old wounds are the issues of corruption, low salaries, inadequate housing and unemployment, which is particularly high among the country’s youth.

“People are still afraid of what happened in the 90s and they do not want to risk going back to that period, so they do not want to go to the street to protest,” Karima Moali, a secondary school teacher, told IPS.

Meanwhile, the Algeria government is using covert methods of warding off dissent, particularly the kind aroused by economic dissatisfaction.

Consistently high oil revenues suggest that by the close 2012 the foreign revenues fund will amount to some 205.2 billion dollars.

Currently, Algeria is producing 1.2 million barrels of oil per day, but “our capacity is 1.4 million barrels, and (could) reach 1.5 million in a few months,” said Algerian Energy Minister, Youcef Yousfi, in a summit in Kuala Lumpur on Jun. 7.

Thus the government has been able to allocate enough money towards employment-generating schemes, better housing, and social services in an effort to ward off social unrest.

State-owned companies have created enough new opportunities to bring unemployment down to 9.8 percent from 11.3 percent in 2008, according to national statistics, though the youth unemployment rate stands stubbornly at 20 percent.

The government also allocated funds towards new public housing and increased state salaries across the board, just prior to the May 10 elections.

“Of course there is not a fair redistribution of the oil revenue, as we asked for in the demonstrations; rather, (national) wealth is being used to avoid a worse situation that could provoke a revolution or a revolt,” Djamal Hammoune, a human rights activist, told IPS.

(END)

By Giuliana Sgrena
ALGIERS, May 8 2012 (IPS)

“Is that your photo on the poster?” a policeman asked a woman standing in front of an electoral campaign board in Algiers. “Why do you ask?” she inquired. “Because only the candidates are interested in these elections,” he replied.

The woman was Cherifa Kheddar, president of Djazairouna or ‘Our Algeria’, an association formed to support victims of terrorism. She was, in fact, proposed as a candidate for the general elections slated to be held on May 10, but refused to participate in what many commentators, citizens and activists are describing as a ‘sham’.

When Tunisia went up in flames in December 2010, the unrest quickly spread to neighbouring Algeria, where a population of 36 million people was already simmering over the lack of proper housing, rising food prices and widespread political corruption.

As polling day inches closer, many of Algeria’s 21.6 million eligible voters are expressing discontent and scepticism that elections will bring any lasting change.

Kheddar, a resident of the Islamist stronghold of Blida, located 40 kilometres from the capital city of Algiers, told IPS, “In my electoral district alone there are 44 lists for just 13 deputies.”

Anyone who wanted to be a candidate but wasn’t able to find a place on a party list simply created a new civil list and ran as an independent candidate, she added; but nobody has a clear programme of action.

A staggering 44 parties and 183 independent candidates will compete for the 462 seats in parliament, 30 percent of which are reserved for women.

Rubber stamp elections?

“These elections are just a comedy,” Djamal, a shopkeeper on the central Didouche Mourad Street, told IPS. The customers around him agreed.

“Nothing is changing, the politicians are all the same, they make promises when they want to get votes but when they are elected they (act) only on their interests,” added Sidi Ali, an unemployed youth.

“We are a rich oil country but the money is only for a few people. The majority of us are poor people – I will not vote,” he said.

Algeria is the world’s sixth largest natural gas producer, behind Russia, the United States, Canada, Iran, and Norway. A member of the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), the country has raked in substantial oil revenues since 2010, but few besides the country’s elite see the benefits of this wealth.

The official unemployment rate in Algeria is 9.8 percent, a figure that rises to more than 20 percent for young people.

State officers echoed the sentiments of people in the streets – many told IPS, under condition of anonymity, they wouldn’t vote in the upcoming election.

This common feeling of apathy towards the ballot has prompted politicians to call off ill-attended meetings, while opposition rallies or assemblies draw only a handful of activists.

Many politicians have taken to holding their meetings in villages or small towns where they have a higher chance of drawing a crowd, since most people in the capital have grown indifferent to politics.

In the popular neighbourhood of Bab al Oued, a former Islamist stronghold back in the 1990s, most election propaganda has been scratched off the walls.

Election observers fear that voter turnout will not exceed the 35 percent who graced the 2007 polls.

Islamists regroup

Inspired by the success of Islamist parties in Egypt and in Tunisia, three Algerian Islamist forces merged to form the Islamic Green Alliance, a coalition comprised of the Society for Peace Movement (MPS) – an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood – Ennahda and el Islah, in the hopes of snagging a majority of the Islamic vote.

The Green Alliance has the support of numerous Gulf countries including Qatar and Saudi Arabia, as well as the Doha-based Al Jazeera broadcasting network.

But their local support base is fractured. “MPS has been in power for long time now, and is not reliable as an opposition force. I think that Abdallah Djaballah (leader of the new Islamic Justice and Development Front or JDF) is more appreciated by the (population),” sociologist Nacer Djabi told IPS.

Opposed to an alliance with MPS, Djaballah left el Islah to form the JDF, thereby weakening what would otherwise have been a united Islamic front and lessening its chances of victory at the polls.

Still, the result depends on the turnout at the ballot boxes this Thursday.

One secular party, the Rally for Culture and Democracy (RCD), has decided to boycott the elections altogether because “it is impossible to reform the system in power.”

And in an ironic twist, the party that was famous for boycotting elections in the past, the Socialist Forces Front (FFS), has announced it will run this time, “for tactical reasons,” according to its leader Hocine Ait Ahmed, who is hopeful that the presence of 500 international election observers is a step in the right direction for democracy in the country.

Mustapha Bouchachi, who served as chairman of the Algerian League for the Defence of Human Rights before heading the FFS list in Algiers, says his party rejects the system in power but “wants a peaceful change; violence does not allow us to build a democracy,” he told IPS.

Widespread corruption

A low turnout will be a disaster for the current government, the National Liberation Front (FLN) and the National Democratic Rally (RND). Both parties have thrown the full power of the state behind their electoral campaign, including the rampant use of state television and promises of distributing houses to voters.

They are not the only parties defying electoral laws and regulations. Amar Ghoul, minister of Public Works and head of the Green Alliance list in Algiers is offering ten iPads to voters who will contribute to his campaign.

Nearly 400 complaints, most of them related to the wasteful use of state resources, have been lodged at the National Independent Commission for Election Monitoring (CNISEL) since the launch of the campaign on Apr. 15.

Both the FLN and RND have been harkening back to the pre-independence period, when the FLN was instrumental in toppling French colonial rule and ushering in a ‘liberated’ Algeria; but in a country where 70 percent of the population is under the age of 30, such rhetoric pales in comparison to the harsh reality of unemployment and poverty.

Afghanistan is quickly becoming one of the deadliest countries in the world for foreign and local journalists. In the last decade alone, 16 journalists have been killed on the job and so far no one has been brought to justice for these murders.

The presence of 200 print news outlets, 44 television stations and 141 radio stations in Afghanistan has done little to improve press freedom Credit: Giuliana Sgrena/IPS

The silence of Afghan President Hamid Karzai in the face of such impunity is also a serious cause for concern for press freedom advocates.

After the fall of the Taliban and the arrival of foreign troops in 2001, Afghanistan experienced a ‘media boom’ that led to the rapid proliferation of publishing and broadcasting houses. The country is currently home to 200 print news outlets, 44 television stations (25 of which are in Kabul), about 141 radio stations and eight news agencies, all of which are increasing steadily.

Sadly, this increase has done little to improve press freedom in the country, since most media are linked to the government, warlords, the governments of occupying forces, or powerful, wealthy men – none of whom allow journalists to carry out their work properly.

Add to this the Taliban-imposed censorship of all media, including images of nudity that appear in soap operas, and the press landscape in Afghanistan bears striking resemblance to a battlefield on which journalists must wage a daily war to report the truth.

Widespread censorship

Nazir Fayaz, a 34-year-old journalist who has been working for years at Ariana TV, was forced to resign three months ago because of a dispute with the Iranian ambassador.

During an interview the Iranian diplomat accused Afghan people of “accepting the foreign occupation”, a statement which Fayaz openly criticised.

Because his harsh response to the ambassador was broadcast nationwide, Fayaz was put in jail for two days, then forced by Iranian and Afghan authorities to resign.

Now, Fayaz gets threatening phone calls not only from the Iranian embassy but also from “the government, warlords, drug traffickers and Taliban. It’s very risky to be a journalist in Afghanistan,” Fayaz told IPS.

“There is no freedom of press in Afghanistan because all the media are in the hands of warlords, mafia and banks. Censorship is even stronger in governmental media. Ariana TV was (independent) until the Afghan-American owner, Ehsan Bayat, became senator,” Fayaz told IPS.

Fayaz is now considering leaving the field altogether to become an activist with the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission because “there is no chance of doing an honest job in media in Afghanistan.” He believes that free media is crucial to bringing peace to the country, “but if there is no freedom of expression the result will be the opposite,” he predicted ominously.

Some provinces in the south and east of Afghanistan, like Helmand, Uruzgan, Paktika and Farah, are no-go areas for journalists.

On Feb. 22, 2011, the decapitated body of Sadim Khan Bhadrzai, who had been kidnapped the previous evening, was found in Urgun, in the southeastern province of Paktika. He was the manager of Mehman- Melma, a local, very popular radio, and his death was just the latest in a series of targeted assassinations of media personnel over the years.

Every year there are hundreds of cases of violence against journalists, most of them in Kabul, Herat and Helmand.

Women journalists solider on

Women journalists have increasingly become the target of threats. In 2007 Zakia Zaki, the owner of Radio Peace in Kandahar, was shot and killed in her bed, where she sleeping with her young son.

But despite the dangers of the job, women haven’t given up.

Najeeba Feroz is a frail but resolute 24-year-old journalist working for BBC Afghanistan, which broadcasts in Dari and Pashto. Her office in Shara Now, in the centre of Kabul, is a well protected building surrounded by armed guards.

Feroz earned her degree at Kabul University and worked at a string of independent print and broadcast outlets, including Tolo TV, but was soon frustrated by the lack of independent reporting and the heavy- handed political control of all media.

“The only choice you have is between censorship or self censorship. That’s why I moved to the BBC,” she told IPS.

Here, “we verify all our sources and we don’t care if we have to report on corruption involving the government or warlords, as long as the reporting corresponds to reality,” she said.

Feroz, like many other journalists, wants to leave the country.

“After three years of work here (at the BBC) we have the opportunity to spend one year outside, this will be a good chance, but after that I will come back to help my people,” said Feroz, whose beat is covering women’s issues that often go unreported.

Senator Belqis Roshan, another intrepid female journalist, told IPS she travels around her province of Farah, collecting news about violence against women and raising the voices of victims in the senate, because “in Farah we have no media at all,” she said.

Afghanistan has a stubbornly high illiteracy rate of 72 percent, so TV and radio are the most effective ways of spreading news around the country.

As foreign troops trickle out of Afghanistan, local police or private security contractors have filled the gaps in Kabul. Credit: Giuliana Sgrena/IPS

By Giuliana Sgrena
KABUL, Apr 7 2012 (IPS)

Though the United States’ announcement to pull its troops from Afghanistan by 2014 was celebrated by most Afghans as the imminent end of a protracted and controversial foreign occupation, there are lingering questions about the outcome of such a withdrawal.

Specifically, experts and lay people alike are asking whether it will make the country safer for democracy or more vulnerable than ever to violence and extremism. Others are sceptical that the country will ever be free of U.S. presence in a geographically strategic country, close to Iran, Pakistan and Central Asia.

More than ten years since the arrival of foreign troops to ‘fight terrorism’, Afghan people are openly questioning the U.S’ ‘real goal’ when it entered the country.

“The goal of the (U.S) was not to fight terrorism, even though they killed (former Al-Qaeda chief) Osama bin Laden. Al-Qaeda is still here and spreading throughout the region (into Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, etc), which is useful for the U.S. because they will be asked for help and can use it as an excuse to remain in the region,” Naseer Fayaz, a renowned journalist, told IPS.

Though U.S. President Barack Obama announced the withdrawal of a portion of the stationed troops by the end of 2014, few are hopeful that this will lead to any lasting change on the ground.

“They (the U.S.) will never leave Afghanistan because it is very important from geographic and strategic points of view. The U.S. strategy is a long term one, they are here to control the area from Iran to Central Asia,” Fayaz stressed.

“They use Al-Qaeda to stay here, while negotiating with some jihadists to reach their goals,” he added.

Wadeer Safi, a law professor in the Kabul University, believes that foreign troops will remain on Afghan soil for another reason, one that is actually relevant to the country’s civil society.

“The U.S. will not leave Afghanistan before realising their goal of putting a government based on transparency and social justice into place. This is not the case up to now; criminals are still in power. They should be put on trial,” Safi told IPS.

If “foreign troops leave the country in the hand of fundamentalists, Afghanistan will become a narco state linked to Pakistan,” the professor said, a speculation supported by the fact that the majority of global opium poppy – 123,000 of 195,000 hectares in 2010 – was cultivated in Afghanistan. The country also relies on the drug trade for a third of its gross domestic product (GDP).

Furthermore, Afghanistan is the second most corrupt nation in the world after Somalia, making many people pessimistic about the country’s political future.

Regardless of this concern, the majority of the country is in favour of a withdrawal of all troops. After the massacre in Kandahar and outrage over the Quran burnings at the U.S.-run Bagram military base, tensions swept through the country, penetrating even Kabul, where foreign troops have been replaced by the Afghan army and police.

But “few people trust the Afghan police, who are divided based on ethnic groups,” said Fayaz, adding that diplomats and businessmen have turned to private, often foreign, security contractors for protection.

Embassies are completely surrounded by cement walls and entry is forbidden to Afghans who do not have a special permit.

The presence of warlords and their militias is a danger that could be exacerbated by the exit of foreign troops; though for now, hostilities have been suspended due to power sharing.

Some experts believe that a full withdrawal will lead to the outbreak of civil war; others doggedly hold onto the view that according U.S. troops the label of ‘saviour’ is mere propaganda.

“The U.S. wants to sell more weapons to the Afghans. But the origin of the Afghan problems is the occupation and the warlords in power. Only corrupt people want the troops to stay. Foreign occupations never bring democracy. The people (of a country) must struggle for freedom,” Malalai Joya, a member of the previous Loya Jirga (the Afghan parliament), told IPS.

“But it is not easy to struggle against occupation,” said Baseer, chief of the shura (tribal council) of Khewa in Dar-e-Noor (the village of light), close to the city of Jalalabad.

“Even if 99 percent of the people are against occupation, it is difficult to show your opposition because you will be labelled by the government as Taliban,” with all the consequences such a denouncement entails, Baseer told IPS.

“We need time, we have struggled against the soviet occupation, against jihadis, the Taliban and now we are facing (another) new occupation. We are with the people and we try to solve their problems, that is why we are still here,” he stressed.

He added that if a civil war breaks out, it will be the result of billions of dollars arriving in Afghanistan from outside the country “for a few rich people to build their villas”, not because of the departure of U.S. troops from Afghan soil.

Kabul bears all the signs of this new ‘blood money’, where massive villas have sprung up alongside traditional mud house surrounded by open sewers, highlighting the increasing gap between a handful of wealthy people and the vast majority of the country’s poor.

Hafiz Rashid, leader of the secular Solidarity Party of Afghanistan, told IPS, “People want peace, they don’t want more fighting and for that reason they will accept any puppet government the U.S. will impose on Afghanistan.”

In any case, he added, the U.S. will not retreat completely, but simply reduce the number of their troops remaining in the military bases.

During a meeting with a group of war victims held in the old city of Shari-kua and attended mostly by war widows who are asking for justice, it became clear these groups are willing to accept the presence of foreign troops “if that means peace,” said Fatma, a widow whose husband was killed by a rocket during the post 1992 civil war that shook the country.

“I am worried about the last events (at the Bagram Air Base) where the U.S. soldiers burned the Quran. But if they respect our religion and they can help us, we are not against them,” she said.

Mursal, a beautiful 19-year-old girl who has run away from home to escape a mentally ill husband, is just one of many Afghan women and girls who are now considered criminals under the country’s laws on ‘morality.’

Running away from one’s husband is considered a ‘moral crime’, for which hundreds of Afghan women have already been jailed, with hundreds more at risk of been sentenced to a similar fate.

“I was forced to marry a mentally sick man when I was 11 years old, I was still a child and had no information about sex and marriage. I had just run away from my house because my father’s second wife used to beat me,” Mursal told IPS.

The memory of those early years is obviously still fresh in her mind, though she recounted the story from a women’s shelter in Kabul, far away from her old home.

“My mother died when I was one year old and since than my life has been hell. That’s why I came here to this shelter nine years ago. A year later, my father arrived and forced me to go to Maidan Shar to live with my cousin. A month later I was married.”

“Because my husband has many mental problems, people started to say that I was a prostitute. One night they started shouting in front of my house, so I left and have been here for the last three days,” she said.

Dressed in a beautifully embroidered dress and scarf that is out of place with her humble surroundings, one can’t help but think that Mursal fled with her most precious possessions on her back, and little else.

Now she says she wants a divorce but that will not be easy to obtain without her husband’s consent, which changes according to his unstable moods and the opinions of those around him. Still, she is certain she wants to remarry, this time to a man from Kabul.

“In the city men are better than in the villages,” she says hopefully with tears in her eyes.

Live with abuse, or die

Women like Mursal don’t have many alternatives to marriage because a woman living alone in Afghanistan is considered a prostitute even if she works another job.

Luckily the shelter she lives in, run by Humanitarian Assistance for the Women and Children of Afghanistan (HAWCA), a local non-governmental organisation, provides classes in literacy and courses in tailoring. Two of the women from the shelter even became police officers.

Two years ago state legislation came close to shutting down all the private shelters and placing them under government control but huge protests brought a compromise that the government would run the “open shelters” and the NGOs the “closed” ones.

Up to now the government hasn’t opened any shelters of its own, so the ministries and police continue to send women in danger to the NGO-run centres. In Kabul there are only three such shelters in operation and a total of 14 in all of Afghanistan – hardly adequate to meet the needs of increasing numbers of survivors of domestic violence.

Women have also turned to self-immolation as a way of avoiding domestic abuse – preferring to die a horrifically painful death than continue a life of acute suffering. The Istiqlal hospital in Kabul opened a special department for burned patients, 90 percent of whom are women. Most of these victims succumb to the severity of their burns; only a tiny minority survive.

But burn patients are not always victims of self-immolation. Quite often women are set ablaze by their own husbands or in-laws so that now, according to Harir, a doctor at the Istiqlal hospital, police are informed about all burn patients so that appropriate investigations can be opened.

Sadly, most members of the police force are ill-equipped to handle domestic violence complaints lodged by women; and women themselves have expressed concern over the risk of rape at the hands of the police. To address the situation, HAWCA conducts trainings to educate the police officers, “but it is not easy to change a cultural legacy,” Selay Ghaffar, the president of HAWCA, told IPS.

Ghaffar also admitted that honour killings continue to be a major problem that “in many cases are hidden by the tribe or the community (and never brought to light). The girl or the woman just disappears.”

“In other cases the Taliban takes charge of the execution by stoning the girl (to death),” she added.

There are also widespread cases of torture.

“Sarah Gul was tortured by her husband because she refused to become a prostitute,” Malalai Joya, herself a victim of state violence in retaliation for earning a seat in the Loya jirga (council of elders) for the Farah region, told IPS.

After a speech against the Taliban warlords she was beaten while some members of the parliament shouted, “rape her.” Her case is now famous across the country.

Recently, Gulnaz, a 21-year-old woman, also gained national recognition by lodging a complaint with the police after she was raped by her cousin-in-law, who happened to be a powerful man in the local community.

Instead of arresting the perpetrator, the police condemned Gulnaz for adultery. The alternative to her three-year prison sentence was to marry the man who raped her, which Gulnaz refused.

Unconstitutional treatment

These ‘moral crimes’ are determined by an illegal procedure that is not upheld in the constitution but rather determined by vague religious concepts. As a result, running away from home now earns women a prison sentence, denouncing rape labelled them adulterers and refusing a forced marriage is a crime.

The Afghan Ulema (religious leaders) recently issued a declaration to limit women’s already scant freedoms: for example, a woman can’t speak to an unknown man, and the husband is authorised to beat his wife if she doesn’t obey. This document is supported by president Hamid Karzai, who banned the English version of the Ulema document from the government website.

All this is happening under the “control” of the international community and various armed forces that are still very much present and engaged in Afghanistan.

“Ten years after the fall of the Taliban, the situation for women is worsening by the day,” Bilqis Roshan, a senator who receives bad news about women from her region of Farah every single day, told IPS.

“The majority of senators are warlords and religious fundamentalists so it is very difficult to take positions in favour of women’s rights. But at the very least, I can raise the issue and lift the voice of my people,” she added.

By Giuliana Sgrena and - -
TUNIS, Nov 14 2011 (IPS)

Tunisian women poured into the streets armed with the vote, their latest weapon, when the country voted in its first democratic election since a popular uprising unseated former president Zine Abidine Ben Ali, ending his 27-year- long stronghold on the country.

Women protest in Tunis to demand protection of their rights. Credit: Giuliana Sgrena/IPS.

Fears stoked by the recent attacks by ultraconservative groups known as Salafists on movie theatres and TV stations playing films by women filmmakers have been exacerbated by aggression against teachers and students in universities across the country.

Ennahda has gone out of its way to distance itself from the actions of extremists, issuing repeated assurances to the public that their party walks a much more moderate line.

“We will respect the Tunisian people’s way of life and act to preserve women’s rights,” Souad Abdelrahim, an elected member of Ennahda’s constituent assembly told IPS.

Abdelrahim, the only one of Ennahda’s 42 elected female representatives to not wear a veil, has become the virtual poster child for Ennahda’s ‘moderate’ image and its supposed acceptance and tolerance of all women, regardless of religion or dress.

However, Ennahda’s more conservative elements, as well as radical Salafists who refused to vote in the election, are angered by the watered down approach and are calling loudly on Ennahda to take a much more hard-line religious stand.

Last week many dozens of women, including teachers, students and activists, congregated outside the Cité des Sciences, a university in Ariana, Tunis, to call attention to the physical and verbal attacks being launched against women by new conservative actors in various social spaces.

Along the walls of the Cité des Sciences, just in front of a mosque, a group of bearded Salafists screamed at women passing by: “Dégage, dégage”. Literally translated the expression means, “Go away” and was used as a slogan during the revolution against Ben Ali to signify citizens’ outrage with the regime.

Most of the time, these verbal slurs are hurled at women whose clothing defies the conservative dress code expected of women in many Islamic countries.

Not a single party or organisation has issued a formal statement condemning the aggression, forcing women to revert to social media, a widely employed strategy during the revolution, as a means of drumming up support and calling for protests.

Interestingly, the call for a major demonstration in front of the Government palace in Al Kasbah was put forward not by prominent bloggers or activists but by ordinary women who claim they are not affiliated with any one party or ideology.

The call was answered by scores of women, both religious and secular, some supporters of Ennahda and others unaffiliated to politics, all of whom are determined to cement their new-found rights in the country’s fresh constitution.

“I am a professor of Islamic history at the University and if, during my lesson, I say something that doesn’t correspond to conservative Islamist thinking, I know I will be in real danger,” Latifa Bekky, a member of the militant Tunisian Association of Democratic Women, which goes by its French acronym ATFD, told IPS. The organisation is one of just a handful that is actively seeking to safeguard women’s human rights in the new Tunisia.

Several other women’s associations are suspicious about the group, which is said to have ties to Ben Ali’s Constitutional Democratic Rally (RCD) party.

Secular feminists caught in the middle are doing their best to maintain calm during this transitional moment, which is a critical point for Tunisia’s future.

“As a secular feminist and progressive, Ennahda is automatically my political antagonist,” Sana Ben Achour, former president of the ATFD told IPS. “Ennahda’s leadership claims it will respect Tunisian women’s rights but these promises can only be verified by their actions,” she added.

“Many of the women engaged in political activity have faced serious threats via the Internet,” Souad Rejeb, a psychologist and ATFD activist, told IPS. “(Sana) Ben Achour’s image in a facebook post was cancelled with a cross, a symbol that represents a death threat.”

Though women may have harboured fears before the election, none wanted to sacrifice their newly acquired right to vote by boycotting the polls.

“We wanted to safeguard our right to vote freely for the time in our lives – we did observe some irregularities, but not enough to deter us from voting altogether,” said Samira Hizaoui, an electoral candidate for a new workers’ party created recently by the General Union of Tunisian Workers (UGTT), which is also calling insistently for women’s equality.

Most of these women are very courageous and are prepared for the long, hard struggle ahead. Salma Beccar, a famous filmmaker, who is also a representative of the Modernist Democratic Pole (MDP), is one of them.

“I am not afraid of Ennahda – most of their success is due to an effective propaganda campaign supported by satellite TV stations like Al Jazeera. Without this support, the Islamists would not have enjoyed a landslide victory,” she told IPS.

“They have promised to preserve Tunisia’s family code (the most progressive ‘family law’ in the Arab world) but they have already started to talk about adoption laws going against Islamic law,” Beccar told IPS.

“Rumours are also circulating on Facebook about the party’s intention to segregate schools, buses and other public areas based on gender. We need to be aware of these changes and be ready to resist,” she added.

“Although in the beginning Ennahda is showing its ‘moderate’ face, I have my doubt that Islamists are capable of being moderate in the long run,” Chakras Balhaj Yahya, a UGTT trade unionist told IPS.

“My six sisters chose to wear the veil, which I don’t understand. I still walk around in my miniskirt but now people look at me differently,” she added.

Wissal Kassraoui, a young journalist at Shams Radio, who also wears Western clothes, confessed that she is afraid about what could happen in the next few years, or even months.

“They (the moderates) will wait, perhaps one year, perhaps less, to show their true face; but the fact is, their base has already started threatening women,” she stressed.

Excerpt:

The fundamentalist Ennahda party seems poised to take advantage of a chaotic situation ahead of general elections in Tunisia. Ennahda and other Islamist parties are taking advantage of the Aug. 2 deadline for registration for elections coinciding with the start of the holy month of Ramadan, when there is better attendance at mosques.

So far only 16 percent of potential voters have registered.

The interim government has warned imams against political propaganda at Friday prayers, but there is no sign of compliance. If anything, the Islamist parties have support from new imams coming in for the Ramadan from Saudi Arabia.

Bolstered with money from rich Gulf countries, the Islamists are increasing their influence among the poor by offering financial support to women willing to leave their jobs and stay at home, and to men who grow beards to show religiosity. The Islamists also organise collective weddings, picking up the costs.

As a consequence, Wahhabism, the purist form of Islam exported by Saudi Arabia, is spreading rapidly in this country where religion has always been regarded as a matter of individual choice. The more radical Islamist groups are becoming visibly aggressive, resorting to violence during demonstrations, and threatening women.

Two weeks ago hundreds of radical Islamists raided police stations to snatch weapons, injuring some policemen. The popular belief is that these ‘Salafi’ groups may be a militant wing of the Ennahda.

President Fouad Mebaza’s decision to extend the state of emergency, declared Jan. 14 and set to be lifted on Jul. 31, may also have been prompted by fears of violence by radical groups.

Ennahda is unlikely reach absolute majority, but it is influencing the elections and altering the political course, to some extent away from the democratic ideals of the January revolution.

The Islamists did not participate in the revolution.

In a move to shore up secular goals in the face of the fundamentalist tide, a democratic front has emerged, and has organised a rally against violence in the national capital.

Women’s associations that were active during the revolution fear the apathy ahead of elections. Their efforts in filling 50 percent of the candidates’ lists will come to naught if enough Tunisians do not participate.

A programme has been launched by women’s rights groups to convince women to come out and vote on election day, Oct. 23, and to be actively involved in the electoral process.

Women’s groups are also keeping an eye on the space given by media to different political forces during the campaign. Tunisia’s media is poorly developed, and journalists are yet to wean themselves away from the suppression and censorship that marked dictatorial rule.

People appear confused about electing a constituent assembly that is to give them a new constitution and pave the way for general elections. This is not surprising, considering that no less than 100 new political parties are contesting Tunisia’s first free elections.

“I don’t know who I will vote for” is a common refrain. “There was always (ousted president Zine El Abidine) Ben Ali to choose for me,” said one undecided voter, reflecting the dependency that people had come to have on the repressive regime.

The fact that there are too many new political parties in the fray is seen as a sign of interest in gaining power rather than solving problems that are the legacy of decades of dictatorship. It is hard to tell one new party from another.

Many young people who had supported the revolution seem disappointed. There is no move to pin responsibility for what went wrong under dictatorship, and there is a sense that the perpetrators of repression, corruption and abuses under the fallen regime are never going to be held to account.

Such apathy has made it difficult for the independent court for the constitutional elections to convince Tunisians that they hold the power to pick candidates who can be trusted to build a democratic future.

A campaign to build awareness on the importance of the new constitution using street posters, advertisements and pamphlets, some distributed at airports targeting Tunisians flying in, appears to have fallen flat.

The lack of professionalism in the media is somewhat offset by about 300 bloggers seeking to bridge the information gap, and trying to convince people of the importance of the elections, starting with registration as voters.