TAKRIZ TO THE UNITED NATIONS

388e jour après Ben Ali

United Nations,

I would like to bring to your attention the dismal situation of freedom of speech and expression in Tunisia. The last resemblances of freedom are dying, rapidly.

Tunisia is a beautiful tiny country on the cross roads between Eastern and Western Mediterranean, between Europe and Africa, between the civilizations of the East and those of the West.

Through history, it was the birth place or the adoptive land of many ancient civilizations. Peoples met on our shores, and many settled sharing their values and cultures. What defines Us as a culture has altered as the constituant parts of the population altered. The only constants have been Peacefulness and Openness.

TAKRIZ (the country's first Online Think-tank) main raison d'être is to oppose the erosion of Freedoms in general and those of Speech and Expression in particular by a corrupt and undemocratic government. We think that this does not only threaten the flourishing of the huge creative potential of our people, but more dramatically, the very survival of our identity as an open and peaceful nation.

The movement was founded in 1998 and is considered to be a pioneer in cyberdemocratic activism worldwide. It started as the voice and champion of Tunisian youth. From 1998 to 2002 we were able to attract a huge audience thanks to our style and temperament. We innovated online while the country was just getting round the idea of Internet. Stubbornly free, true, secular, honest, citizen, and anonymous were the hallmarks of our output. We fervently claimed and used our freedom to think and to express ourselves, to talk to our compatriots about what matters to them, and what bothers them, as no other media outlet did so. We see civil engagement as a means and a goal. Our vision is that of a country with a vibrant civil society, that of (once again) proud and free minds.

Our online movement has been censored since August 2000 and that’s why we’re issuing this statement.

For two years, we outpaced the government's censorship and oppression machine. We had a tremendous success as our large audience and the volume of correspondance we received kept soaring from one month to the other. We quickly became the only critical voice in a barren media landscape. Tunisians of all ages followed us and rallied behind us. We created a forum for civil debate and engagement. We opened a channel for the huge creative potential of our nation. We were motivated by what we saw as the natural right of our nation to think, believe and express views freely. We had a vision for Tunisia that we created virtually to show our people how much better things can be.

Expectedly, our success did not go unnoticed. When you build a career as a clog in a repressive regime, as the current president had done, you cannot take control of the state and suddenly abandon your fundamental propensity for domination, control and power to transform the regime into a democracy where difference of beliefs is a virtue.

Public decent, critique and success threaten the very existence of dictatorships. They inculcate the idea that people's lives cannot be improved otherwise, that they are the one and only viable option for government and that this form of government is ludicrously perfect, infallible and eternal.

Consequently, our site was censored, our members targeted and some of our friends and supporters jailed. We may want to recall the memory of Zouheir Yahyaoui. A young man that epitomises our vision for a talented emancipated young Tunisians. He showed integrity and a great leadership potential. A potential that was nipped in the bud. Murdered in its cradle by the torturers of the state [cf. reports by Amnesty International and HRW]. Zouheir was one of few people who commended TAKRIZ publicly. Others did not meet such fatal outcome, yet, the state had tried, and still trying, to kill their creativity and powerful words and poems. Taoufik Ben Brik, who currently serves yet another jail sentence, wrote columns for us and was a public supporter.

We are at loss as to how to explain such barbarous reprisals. We are buffled as to how much energy and effort such power hungry corrupt dictators can show and put into controlling every outlet of creativity and expression. Not even the smallest movie or play project escapes their control and censorship. Radio, TV and printed press are all under their control. Even the Internet, the technology that created a global industrial revolution, and generated growth and prosperity the world over, can be summarized as "Error 404", the censorship message in Tunisia!

Everyone in Tunisia is victim to Government Censorship one way or another. We cannot progress if ideas do not flow freely. Takriz believe that Censorship is immoral....

Today we are standing before you claiming our right to think freely, to express ourselves freely and to debate our ideas freely. The right to save our identity. The right to create a forum for ideas where a new generation of leaders for our country can develop. Leaders who will strengthen our historic and social values of openness and peacefulness, who believe as much as we do in our people and their potential. We are claiming the right to do what we believe is right for our nation without fear.

What we urge you to consider is the huge potential that will be unlocked if a liberal society is allowed to blossom. The opportunity is enormous. it will be a chance to let Tunisia be what it has always been: against terror, against extremism, against fundamentalism. No more youths will ever feel the need to adopt fundamentalist views or out of anger, frustration or depravation. Our nation can grow to believe in itself again, to be comfortable in its own skin, to work for a better future and to prosper.