Category: Blog

Tunisia: How long will the Essebsi-Ghanouchi Consensus hold?

During the previous week, President Beji Caid Essebsi delivered an hour-long speech in which he threatened to use the army to break up the protests in Tataouine and at the oil production facilities in El Kamour. The sit-ins had been...

/ May 22, 2017

Morocco: Mending Fences between Islamists and Leftists Unnerves the Palace

Over 129 professionals linked to the Islamist group Al Adl wal-Ihssane (AWI) have been victims of a wave of relocations and terminations, since last January. On 20 March 2017, a group of human rights activists, lawyers, and journalists gathered at...

/ March 20, 2017

Tunisia: The Labour Union and the Chahed Government

The standoff between the UGTT union and the government has reached a nerve-racking stage. The union of teachers is demanding the departure of Neji Jalloul, the minister of education, in retaliation for the sanctions he imposed on teachers who went...

/ March 3, 2017

Tunisia: Six Years on, the Revolution is Still Underway

Six years on the political, social and intellectual dynamics unleashed in Sidi Bouzid, on 17 December 2011, are still underway in Tunisia. This year’s celebrations of the 14 January anniversary of the ousting of former president Ben Ali were marked...

/ January 25, 2017

Tunisia: More Continuity than Change within the UGTT

Tunisia’s labour union UGTT elected Noureddine Taboubi secretary general of its executive bureau during its 23rd congress, held on 22-25 January. Observers expect more continuity than change in the union’s policy given that most of the members of the outgoing...

/ January 25, 2017

Tunisia Dares to Confront its Sordid Past

Two weeks ago Tunisia’s Truth and Dignity Commission, a constitutionally enacted body, began a series of public hearings of victims of violations of human rights since Tunisia’s independence, sixty years ago. The hearings that have been broadcast live on local...

/ November 17, 2016

Surur, Leading Scholar of Haraki Salafism Dies

One of the major developments in the Islamist movements landscape this year was the death of Sheikh Muhammad Surur, this November. Surur started in the Muslim Brotherhood school of thought then gradually moved into the Haraki Salafi activist current within...

/ November 11, 2016

Tunisia’s Delicate Balancing Act with Saudi Arabia

Two months only after his appointment as minister of religious affairs Abdeljalil Ben Salem was dismissed following a polemic at a hearing at the Tunisian parliament. Answering a question from a leftist Popular Front MP about Wahhabism and its links...

/ November 4, 2016