Hi All
In the e-mail below, which I forwarded to the comunica-ch list on Oct.
4, Andy Carvin mentioned that yezzi.org the main site for the online
protest, had been blocked by the Tunisian authorities. A Tunisian human
rights militant who participates in the demo has now sent an alternative
URL for the slide show part of the site,
<http://www.flickr.com/photos/yezzi/show>, which she says is not yet
blocked in Tunisia. She has authorized me to forward this alternative URL.
Claude
Andy Carvin wrote:
Hi everyone,
Right now there's an extraordinary online protest coming out of Tunisia.
The website, Yezzi.org, is a collection of photos of Tunisians holding
up signs in various languages, each with a message directed to Tunisian
President Ben Ali. Though the phrase they use, "Yezzi, Fock!," may
appear to be a misguided attempt to curse out a certain swear word in
the English language, it roughly translates to "General Ben Ali, enough
is enough!" in Tunisian Arabic. In the words of the protest's organizers:
"This expression in Tunisian dialect intends to transmit a clear
message to the dictator in order to give up power, because we consider
it is enough. For us Tunisians, who are always banned from freely
reaching independent information and who are violently forbidden from
any peaceful demonstration; this kind of demonstration is a new form of
peaceful protest."
The site, launched yesterday, contains dozens of photos of Tunisians
venting their frustration at President Ben Ali. They note that free
expression is technically protected under Tunisian law, though not in
practice, so they're using the website to exercise that right:
"[T]here's no Tunisian legislative provision prohibiting the right
to express our opinions. Absolutely not, this demonstration is covered
by the fundamental guarantees provided as well by the Tunisian
Constitution as by the International Conventions ratified by Tunisia.
All the demonstrators on Yezzi.org make use of their right to express an
opinion in saying to the General Ben Ali 'It is enough!'"
The Tunisian authorities, not surprisingly, see the matter differently.
They've already started blocking the site, so only those of us outside
of Tunisia can see it. One can only imagine what might happen to these
cyber dissidents if they were caught by the Tunisian police. No matter
the response, though, it serves as another reminder of the ackwardness
of having the World Summit on the Information Society hosted in Tunisia.
-andy
--
Claude Almansi
Castione, Switzerland
claude.almansi_at_bluewin.ch
http://www.adisi.ch
http://www.digitaldivide.net/profile/Claude
http://www.digitaldivide.net/blog/claude
http://www.digitaldivide.net/community/languages
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