Informazioni che faticano a trovare spazio

Tunisia, le elezioni e le blogger tunisine come Lina Ben Mehmmi

I blogger tunisini ago di bilancia nel cambiamento elettorale. Il Guardian se ne è occupato:

 Tunisia’s most influential bloggers prepare for historic elections On the eve of the first free elections in Tunisia’s history, Angelique Chrisafis surveys the country’s bloggers and net activists, many of whom were influential in bringing the revolution about Angelique Chrisafis in Tunis guardian.co.uk, Saturday 22 October 2011 11.25 BST Article history For years they faced one of the most sophisticated cyber-censorship regimes in the world, hacked, shut down, trailed by secret police, savagely beaten, burgled and jailed. But Tunisian bloggers played a key role in spreading ideas, information and accounts of brutality in the run up to the revolution that ousted Zine El Abidine Ben Ali. Now several of them are running as candidates in Tunisia’s first ever free elections on Sunday. Since the 14 January revolution, Tunisian bloggers have continued to fill the void left by a weak and mistrusted traditional media, which has yet to rebuild itself after decades of government censorship. Lina Ben Mhenni Ben Mhenni (foto), who blogs as A Tunisian Girl was nominated for the Nobel peace prize this year. Her fellow blogger Slim Amamou was made minister for youth and sport days after the revolution, when only a week before he had been handcuffed to a chair in the notorious interrogation rooms of Tunisia’s interior ministry. At the Arab bloggers’ convention in Tunis this month, the cyber-activists who helped start the Arab spring warned they must now reinvent themselves to chart the inequality, police violence and corruption that have yet to be stamped out by the revolution. Riadh Guerfali Co-founder of the influential and award-winning Tunisian web-portal collective Nawaat, and best known under his pseudonym, Astrubal, Guerfali doesn’t fit the blogger stereotype. In his trademark smart grey suit and tie, he is a lawyer and former professor of law at the University of Perpignan in southern France. An expert in constitutional and internet law, he was at the forefront of the fight against censorship for years before Ben Ali was ousted, creating the Nawaat blog collective in 2004. Guerfali is standing as an independent candidate in his native port town of Bizerte, north of Tunis, as part of a grouping called Al-Jalaa, meaning the Evacuation, in reference to the independence struggle against France. “It wasn’t Twitter, it wasn’t Facebook that made this revolution,” he told the Arab bloggers’ conference in Tunis recently. He said cyber-activists were the descendants of all those who had been “imprisoned and tortured and really sacrificed their lives.” For Guerfali, the role of bloggers is to “change the world around us” and he has fought against attempts at censorship in post-revolution Tunisia. He sees campaigning for a seat on the assembly that will rewrite Tunisia’s constitution as a way to decide the legal framework of a new democracy. Amira Yahyaoui The 27-year-old blogger and anti-censorship campaigner is running in the Paris North constituency for Tunisians abroad, on her own independent ticket, Sawt Mostakel (Independent Voice). Her father is a dissident judge, Mokhtar Yahyaoui, who was persecuted by the regime for criticising the corruption of the justice system. He is also running on his own independent ticket in Tunis. She started blogging at 18, by which time she had already experienced Ben Ali’s secret services. At 17 she was beaten in front of her high school and had her legs broken with batons after a demonstration. She was one of the driving forces behind the anti-censorship demonstration of May 2010, which was brutally put down by the regime and set the tone for cyber-activists to step up their opposition to Ben Ali. Her Twitter name, @mira404 is an allusion to the “404 – page not found” notice on blocked webpages, which became a symbol of the struggle. She said: “Before, I was trying to destroy a system, now it’s logical to want to be there when we start building a democracy.” She said she stood for election partly because she felt let down by the main parties’ programmes. “It was about wanting to take part in drawing up a new constitution.” She wanted to push the debate on why the system of the old regime was still in place and there was ongoing “impunity and lack of justice”. Yassine Ayari @yassayari Ayari, a 30-year-old computer engineer and blogger, was pivotal in Tunisia’s anti-censorship demonstration in May 2010 and was stopped by police alongside Slim Amamou. He is running on his own independent list, The Young and Free, in Zaghouan in northern Tunisia, on an anti-censorship ticket. He said: “When I saw the parties still led by dinosaurs over 60 who hadn’t understood, and who refused to understand, that their time was up, that a new way of reasoning and of seeing things had been born, a new generation wanted their say, I decided to stand as an independent. I wanted to try to be the spokesperson for a youth whose parents wanted to steal their revolution and future.” He said of the Tunisian voters he’d met on the campaign trail: “They only want one thing, to be able to trust politics and politicians. They don’t want politicians to use voters just to win power and then forget them. I’ve heard repeated calls for justice. And people want politicians to stop talking and at last start listening.” Mehdi Lamloun @MehdiLamloum Lamloum is a young advertising and marketing guru who works for a communications agency. He became known for his blog about marketing and new media, Pink Lemon Blog. Running in support of the independent philosopher and anthropologist Youssef Seddik in Ariana, a Tunis suburb, he is low on the list and has little chance of being elected but says “from a personal point of view I wanted to live this moment.” He said neither the internet nor Facebook would win anyone the election. “Only going out on the ground pays off and it’s far more difficult, time-consuming, tiring and complicated, but the contact is infinitely more human and it’s allowed me to share ideas and really be confronted by the political work involved in a new Tunisia.” Tarek Kahlaoui @t_kahlaoui An assistant professor in art history at Rutgers University in New Jersey, and a media commentator, Kahlaoui is a campaigner for freedom of expression who became active on the student scene under Ben Ali and saw his blog censored by the regime. He is running as an independent. Imen Braham @__Imen A young blogger and environmentalist, Braham is running on Amira Yahyaoui’s independent list for Tunisians abroad in Paris. She said “The young people of Tunisia want real change. They also want to be in charge. They want more jobs and the end of corruption.” She said most Tunisians believe in the elections as “a step for good change” but she had one fear: “abstention rates”.

Ultimi

Un milione e mezzo i bambini ucraini “inghiottiti” dalla Russia

Un milione e mezzo di bambini e adolescenti ucraini...

Ancora dossieraggi e schedature

Tornano dossier e schedature. Il video che è stato...

Podlech, il Cile lo ha condannato all’ergastolo

ERGASTOLO CILENO PER ALFONSO PODLECHI giudici cileni hanno aspettato...

Era ubriaca…

“Era ubriaca, così ha favorito chi le ha fatto...