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Hundreds of unemployed university graduates demonstrate almost daily across the street from the Moroccan parliament, the Chambres des Representatives, on Mohammed V Ave. But precisely when Tunisians started demonstrating, the Moroccan students stopped protesting, a human rights advocate says. It seems the government has offered them jobs, on condition that they leave the capital.
--Leslie Scrivener, Moroccoby Toronto Star 2/7/2011 1:09:36 PM -
We begin our coverage from Rabat, Morocco, at student residences near the University of Mohammed V. Final exams are looming and students, working in study groups, lifted their heads from their laptops and calculators to say they thought an Egyptian-style uprising is unlikely.
"For the moment, it is impossible," says 23-year-old Amass, who studies finance..
"Because we are a kingdom," says 20-year-old management student Ayda Taki."We love our king."
"They have presidents," says 20 year old marketing student, Maha, referring to the besieged Egyptian and toppled Tunisian leader."We have royalty, our heritage."
--Leslie Scrivener, Moroccoby Toronto Star 2/7/2011 4:40:16 PM -
Staff at the Africa Hotel in Tunis protest poor treatment and wages Monday in the hotel lobby.
by Jim Rankin 2/7/2011 7:12:01 PM -
Tunis, TUNISIA – As darkness falls, the cafes lining Avenue Habib Bourguiba are alive. Men sip coffee and young people stroll along the boulevard, which, aside from the concertina wire around the Ministry of the Interior and other government buildings and teams of soldiers inside on guard, appears otherwise normal.
Throughout the day Monday, protesters seeking better working conditions – from hotel workers and civil servants to students and veterinarians – took to the streets in peaceful protests. There was some pushing with police in one encounter, but nothing serious. One cop, in an attempt to deflate that situation, kissed a protester.
There is a feeling that now is the time to make demands for change that may have previously been unspoken – none of it, such as a shorter work week, too small.
This has not been the case elsewhere in the country, where the fight is on to keep the gains of a revolution from sliding.
With former President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali now more than three weeks gone and the streets of the capital calm, at least three people were reported killed over the weekend by police in clashes in cities to the west and south of Tunis.
The incidents were the bloodiest since Ben Ali fled the country for Saudi Arabia Jan. 14.
The man who ruled for 23 years may be gone and there remain those loyal to him and may be behind a breakdown in security. So suspects the interior minister, who has suspended activities for the former ruling party and ordered its offices shut down.
At least two protesters were shot and killed in one clash with police in Kef, a city west of the capital. Protesters had stormed a police station following reports that a female protester had been assaulted by police. Police opened fire on the crowd. There were unconfirmed reports that two others who were injured later died.
A crowd then ransacked and burned the police station. The army moved in in a bid to bring stability and the local police chief has reportedly been placed under arrest.
The people’s revolution that culminated with the flight of Ben Ali on Jan. 14 was indeed bloody – at the outset of the month, the UN reported 219 had died since December – and all is not yet well.
In Kebili, a city to the south, a young protester died over the weekend after being hit in the head by a tear gas canister.
With world media now camped out in Egypt, there are few foreign media outlets on the ground in Tunisia. Local bloggers who helped document and spread reports of civilian deaths in the weeks before the revolution continue to report on cases of those killed.by Jim Rankin 2/7/2011 7:12:50 PM -
Protesters demanding fair treatment for police ordered to crackdown on demonstrators early on in Tunisia's revolution gather Monday at barriers at Tunis' casbah.
by Jim Rankin 2/7/2011 8:12:56 PM -
A woman strolls past graffiti thanking Facebook for its role in the Tunisian revolution.
by Jim Rankin 2/7/2011 8:21:48 PM -
A Tunisian police officer pleads Monday evening with an angry crowd to leave a busload of riot police alone.
by Jim Rankin 2/7/2011 8:27:06 PM -
Tunis, TUNISIA – Call it revolutionary tourism. Skander Aissa, 34, his French wife and son Selim, 5, do. The Tunisian-born engineer and his family had planned a vacation back to his homeland and the timing couldn’t have been better.
“We followed the revolution on Facebook,” said Aissa, who has been living in France since 2003.
“We want to see it with our own eyes,” said Aissa, who shot pictures of peaceful protests Monday at the casbah, the scene of pre-revolution gatherings of mostly young people.
As did his son, perched on his father’s shoulders and toting a pocket camera of his own.by Jim Rankin 2/7/2011 9:33:34 PM -
Selim Aissa, 5, snaps a picture of a peaceful protest at Tunis' casbah, as does dad Skander Aissa, a Tunisian-born engineer who now lives in France.
by Jim Rankin 2/7/2011 9:34:41 PM -
Tunis, TUNISIA - After a first full day in the city, I have a better sense of the people and what they managed to pull off. Great efforts have been made to erase evidence of former president Zine El Abidine Ben Ali's 23-year rule. Purple, his favourite colour, is being painted over all over Tunis. Giant images of him have been torn from buildings. There is pride and joy, as Tunisians watch as the revolutionary domino in Egypt teeters.by Jim Rankin 2/7/2011 10:00:09 PM
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A Tunisian soldier chats with protesters. The army is growing tired and the defence minister has called for retired personnel to report for duty.
by Jim Rankin 2/8/2011 12:00:56 PM -
Tunis, TUNISIA – Even as business gradually return to business as usual, it’s time to call in the reinforcements and shore up a revolution.
With many police still absent following the “people’s revolution” and its stability under threat, the defence minister is calling on retired army, navy and air force personnel to report for duty across the country.
The army, popular with the people, is tired and spread thin.
Yet, the soldiers remain polite and calm.
I met a colonel in the streets, who proudly said it was the army’s duty to protect the country and continue to do so. This is a period, he said, of a necessary “creative anarchy” that will eventually give way to new governance.
Soldiers have been guarding government buildings and responding to areas in the country where security has lapsed since Jan. 14, when former President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali fled the country.
After a bloody weekend that saw at least three killed by police, lawmakers voted to give an interim government emergency powers. If passed by the Senate in a vote Wednesday, it will allow interim President Foued Mebazaa to rule by decree.
The moves follow the suspension of the former ruling party and fears that supporters of the ousted president and the Democratic Constitutional Rally party are the cause of ongoing security problems in several cities outside the capital.
See earlier blog entries for details of several incidents where police killed civilian protesters.
In Tunis today, the sidewalks are full. On the Avenue Habib Bourguiba, a wide boulevard with manicured trees and reminiscent of Paris’ Champs Elysees, people dressed in fashionable coats and scarves – it is cool here - strolled and mingled.
Still high, from new-found freedoms.by Jim Rankin edited by Toronto Star 2/8/2011 12:02:36 PM -
AMMAN, Jordan – The real change in the political landscape is not what is happening on the streets, where protesters have been dwindling in numbers since King Abdullah II fired his government last week under pressure from growing calls for reform.
It is what is happening on the lips.
The focus of criticism these past few weeks has been the government – accused of both corruption and mismanaging a severe economic crisis – as attacking the king himself is against the law.
These past few days have nonetheless seen a growing number of voices start breaking that taboo, emboldened by a sense they are no longer alone with their individual whispered thoughts.
“People are talking more openly now,” political analyst Radwan Abdullah said in an interview on Wednesday, a significant development in a country where the secret police are feared to the point where people avoid talking politics over the telephone.
No one is asking for abolition of the monarchy, as the system of government that grants the crown to the Hashemites is largely viewed as necessary to balance the competing interests of its deeply divided subjects.
But more people are finding the courage to speak openly about their dissatisfaction with Abdullah and his wife, Queen Rania – darlings of the West but unpopular at home.
The boldest example came this weekend when 36 Jordanian tribal leaders issued a joint statement warning the regime that if large-scale reforms did not come as promised then Jordan would go the way of Egypt and Tunisia.
“The immunity enjoyed by His Majesty the king may not be extended […] in an effort to preserve the constitution and prestige of the nation and continuity of the monarchy,” said an excerpt posted by popular online independent media site Ammon News.
The most surprising aspect of the statement was that it went after Queen Rania, denouncing the lavish birthday party she had in the desert at the expense of taxpayers and accusing her of corruption and meddling in government affairs.
Lengthy excerpts from the statement are available here: en.ammonnews.net
That was not always the case, as the statement was deleted from the website – allegedly by hackers – after Ammon News refused to take it down at the request of security agents. The move sparked a sit-in at the Jordanian Press Association office and the Committee to Protest Journalists, based in New York, has called on the Jordanian government to investigate the alleged attack.by Joanna Smith - Ottawa... 2/9/2011 7:59:04 PM -
by Joanna Smith - Ottawa... 2/9/2011 8:09:41 PM -
When I asked Zaki Bani Rsheid, who heads the political bureau of the Islamic Action Front (the political arm of the Muslim Brotherhood in Jordan and the main opposition party), what the idea role of the monarchy would be in Jordan, he told me: “It doesn’t exist in the Arab world”.
He went on to say it would resemble something like the constitutional monarchy in the United Kingdom, although not quite as “absolute” in that he views the king as needing more than purely symbolic power.
(That was a step back from what he told the New York Times in a story published Friday, which quoted him as saying the goal was to change the role of the king so that he was “like the queen of England or the president of Israel – as an umbrella for stability”.)
When asked why the British model would not work, he said: “To ask for an absolute constitutional monarchy, it becomes impossible to achieve. We want our requests to be convincing and doable.”by Joanna Smith - Ottawa... 2/9/2011 8:18:15 PM -
AMMAN, Jordan -- It is a common perception that revolution begins with the young demanding a brave new world, but Retired General Ali Habashneh believes Jordan would be better off travelling back in time.
“It’s a disparity from the rest of the world,” Habashneh said in an interview Wednesday. “We’re asking for the good old days.”
Those would be the days of 1952, or at least the 1952 version of the constitution, before 29 amendments removed power from the legislative branch and put it into the hands of the king.
Habashneh is a key figure on a committee representing roughly 140,000 retired military personnel that formed in 2002 with the goal of improving living conditions for its members.
That section of society, which is part of the Jordanian tribesmen population – also known as the East Bankers – had generally shied away from national politics before becoming the first group to speak out about corruption last May (more than half a year before protests in Tunisia and Egypt started rocking the Arab world).by Joanna Smith - Ottawa... 2/9/2011 9:20:17 PM -
Kuwait City -- Taking a long drag on her cigarette, Sarah Diba, a Syrian-American studying in Kuwait, bluntly explains why the civil unrest hasn't yet made its way from Egypt and Tunisia up into the oil-rich nation.
"If Kuwaitis were to do what's going on in Egypt, they'd be stupid."
Her friends nod in agreement. The Kuwaitis, she continues, are cradled by their government: free education, interest-free loans to buy a house, cash gifts. Recently, the country's emir announced that each Kuwaiti will receive $1,000 KD as part of the country's celebration of 50 years of independence.
That's close to $4,000 Canadian.
Some here see it as a gift from their benevolent leader. Others call it a payoff:
"Basically, thats what they're doing so what happens in Egypt doesn't happen here," said Bedour, a Kuwaiti national who was given the money.
"Take the money, keep quiet."by jmclean via iPhone 2/10/2011 10:42:08 AM -
A businessman walks past barricades outside the Tunisian Ministry of the Interior building in Tunis. Soldiers and armoured vehicles remain posted to many government buildings.
by Jim Rankin 2/10/2011 3:25:41 PM -
TUNIS, Tunisia – It’s cool and sunny here, and the mood remains almost unanimously giddy and optimistic. I arrived in the Tunisian capital on Sunday, February 6, and was in short order soaking up the hopefulness of a people that rose nearly a month ago and, in one clear voice, shouted “Degage.”
Get out!
Former President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, in power for 23 years, did just that and hopped a plane to Saudi Arabia. Others in power also stepped down and the ruling party has been suspended.
Monday marks the one-month anniversary of a popular uprising that’s been labeled a number of ways, but it feels most fitting to call it the people’s revolution. An interim president and government are in place and elections are likely six months away.
Have some patience and please keep going to work, the interim president asked Thursday.
But in cities across this north African, mostly Arab, country, the people are hungry for big, quick changes and daily peaceful protests continue.
Including at the Africa Hotel, where I am staying. The staff, immensely helpful, are apologetically on strike. The elevator doors slid open the other morning to reveal over 100 staff – maids, doormen and cooks – gathered in the lobby, chanting slogans.
They want better wages and working conditions but they also couldn’t have been happier. They felt able to express their wants (see an earlier bog post for a picture).
“This is a freedom age,” said Hedi Khalfaoui, 29, a reservations manager.
As for the hotel’s director general, staff had a message.
Degage!
The same goes for me today, but expressed in a polite way. The front desk called around noon to inform me that the hotel is closed. It seems I am the only remaining. I must degage by 2 p.m.by Jim Rankin 2/10/2011 3:28:17 PM -
KUWAIT CITY, Kuwait -- The downtown mall where R.V. Umali and his friend sit smoking looks like it hasn't been renovated since Iraqi soldiers invaded and occupied this small nation in 1990. Tiles are cracked. The outside walls have eroded, some parts to the point where window frames have fallen out.
This is where Umali, and many foreign workers like him, works. He spends his days at a photo shop and earns about 160 Kuwaiti Dinars a month, 60 of which goes to support his daughter who still lives in the Philippines.
Most of the remaining cash goes towards rent in a nearby single-room apartment, its only furnishings a cabinet, laptop, fridge and mattress.
"Don't have the money for a bed right now," the 24-year-old says with a laugh.
Many in Kuwait dismiss the notion that the unrest in Egypt and Tunisia could make its way to them. Their emir is benevolent and beloved by the Kuwaiti populace. Compared to its neighbours, Kuwait is a shining democracy, complete with a constitution and elected representatives.
The Kuwait, where nationals are backed by the support of a generous welfare state, is simply a different environment from Tunisia and Egypt, where many residents are revolting against, among other things, unemployment and high food prices.
But some in Kuwait can sympathize with the struggle of just scraping by. When the emir recently distributed $1,000 KD (slightly under $4,000 Canadian) to each Kuwaiti in celebration of the country's 50th anniversary of independence.
But when the money went out, stores across the country raised their prices, residents say. The price for a half-litre of milk jumped by 25 per cent, said Umali's friend, Julius Rivera.
"The emir gave the money and the foreigners suffered," he said.
But neither of the men expect the country's foreign labour force to take a cue from the protests going on in North Africa and beginning to bubble in nearby Middle Eastern countries. For one, Kuwait is a better, safer place to live than their home countries. Secondly, if they protested, both men feel they would likely be jailed or deported -- and would no longer be able to send money home to their children in the Philippines.
"There is no freedom of speech in Kuwait if you're a foreigner," Rivera said.by jmclean 2/10/2011 3:29:26 PM