{"id":19755,"date":"2012-05-26T17:29:46","date_gmt":"2012-05-26T13:29:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/?p=19755"},"modified":"2012-05-26T17:29:53","modified_gmt":"2012-05-26T13:29:53","slug":"tunisian-writers-launch-campaign-against-censors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/middle-east-society\/tunisian-writers-launch-campaign-against-censors\/","title":{"rendered":"Tunisian Writers Launch Campaign Against Censors"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Post-revolutionary censorship is a story that many Western publications seem to be following. The joyful stories about Tunisia \u201cthrow[ing] off the censor\u2019s shackles<\/a>\u201d \u00a0have largely been replaced by stories warning of religiously motivated book bans. Tunisia Live\u2019s\u00a0<\/em>report quotes Al Kitab bookstore worker Adel Hajji as saying, \u201cNow, it is a religion-based type of censorship.\u201d<\/p>\n

Previously, Hajji told Tunisia Live, books were stopped at the airport by the country\u2019s Ministry of Interior. Now, the Al Kitab bookshop doesn\u2019t face problems importing books. However, the MOI did seize the store\u2019s copies of Moi, Mohamed, Esclave Moderne (Me, Mohamed, a Modern Slave)<\/em> by Mohamed Kemigue. They returned them to the shop one week later, apparently after realizing that the book was not about the prophet Mohamed.<\/p>\n

Religion was also the motivation behind the recent high-profile\u00a0trial of Nabil Karoui<\/a>, who was charged for airing\u00a0Persepolis<\/em>, a film based on the popular graphic novel by Marjane Satrapi. Karoui was accused both of \u201cblasphemy\u201d and of \u201cdisturbing public order,\u201d and fined 2,400 dinars. Some editions of French weeklies have also recently been kept from newsstands for offending religious sensibilities, according to UNCUT<\/a>.<\/p>\n

But while religious censorship is the headline-maker, it\u2019s not the only form. Criticism of the army has also been met with censorship, according to Global Voices blogger Afef Abrougui<\/a>, as in the case of blogger Nabil Hajlaoui, \u00a0sentenced to two months in prison.<\/p>\n

Also, pics of women in their skivvies<\/a>\u00a0and such were also under fire.<\/p>\n

Corruption and party-cronyism in the news and book business is not precisely censorship, but they often has similar results. Blogger Lina Ben Mhenni, \u201cA Tunisian Girl,\u201d writes about a recent hunger strike<\/a> by journalists to protest corruption and favoritism in print media.<\/p>\n

But, like the hunger-striking journalists, Tunisian writers and activists are not simply sleeping through this wave of censorship. A number of pro-speech efforts have been launched. And earlier this month \u2014 on the occasion of World Press Freedom Day \u2014 the blog Nawaat<\/a> and the Tunisia Monitoring Group of the International Freedom of Expression Exchange<\/a> launched a major free-speech campaign. Advertisements in Tunisian newspapers, billboard campaigns, anti-censorship videos, training sessions, and workshops will all be part of this initiative, according to Global Voices<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Organizers also plan to publish an anthology, Fleeting Words<\/em>, which will bring together \u201carticles, commentaries and poems written during and after the Ben Ali regime.<\/p>\n

Some images and videos from the campaign <\/strong>here<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

M. LYNX-QUALEY: Censorship is developing many tentacles in Tunisia today but writers are refusing to take attacks lying down <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":19756,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[53,154,235,5,233],"tags":[982,105,3340,18291,1872,3256,18322],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19755"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/16"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19755"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19755\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19756"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19755"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19755"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19755"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}