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Tunisia : Ben Ali Wins, Democracy Loses and “AlJazeera Net” Blocked
Cairo 27/10/2009
The Arabic Network for Human Rights Information, ANHRI, said today, that Tunisia has received three blows on Sunday 25/10/2009.
The control of president, "Zine El Abidine Ben Ali" on the reins of power in Tunisia is asserted for a fifth term ending in 2014, in a formal election whose results were prepared and known in advance.
The formalities and measures taken for Ben Ali’s stay in power for 27 years, will continue to inhibit democracy for another five years.
The last blow was the decision to deprive the Tunisian citizen of one of the most important information sources; the blocking of “AlJazeera Net” in Tunisia.
The victory of President Ben Ali in presidential elections in Tunisia, clearly marks the absence of democracy and the continuing blatant violations of human rights, was quite expected.
Yet, blocking “AlJazeera Net” website on the same day Ben Ali became president for the fifth time, is a blow to the right of the citizens to access true and accurate information , and makes the Tunisians an easy catch for the Tunisian official media known to be lacking independence and diversity of opinions.
Blocking “Al Jazeera Net” came a few days after blocking “MyPortail” news site , due to that both sites published reviews of the French book, "The Regent of Carthage", which monitored the dominance of the strong wife of President Ben Ali and her family on Tunisia in the last years.
The Arabic Network for Human Rights Information said, "We cannot imagine Tunisian citizen under siege of media all speaking one voice and one opinion as of now. The only difference the citizen in Tunisia will see is the new faces that advocate this one opinion. These new faces could be of Tunisian and Egyptian journalists or some Lebanese and Jordanians who dumped the values and ethics of journalism , and fell in for the praise of a despotic regime and made it their duty to attack human rights activists and Tunisian opposition; cheap work for cheap gains lavished by this autocratic regime".
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