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D I P L O M ATIC A | Q UE STI ON S A sk e d
Olive oil is Tunisia’s No. 1 agricultural export.
RE: I am against this legislation. It is a re-
action because a few people, especially in the arts, wanted to provoke the extremists and deliberately committed offences against Islam. My president [Moncef Marzouki] won the 2012 pro-democracy Chatham House prize and was second in Foreign Policy’s 100 Global Thinkers in the World award. When I served as his diplomatic counsellor, I met Hillary Clinton, Alan Jupé and Lech Walesa, who said every revolutionary process takes six years.
I know my president. Two hours after a journalist was arrested, he wanted a press communiqué issued by the presidency against this arrest. He did it for journalists who used to insult him. And when they were arrested, he objected. [In March, Canadian Journalists for Free Expression sent a letter, signed by some 25 international media-freedom organizations, to Ambassador Riadh and cc`d to Foreign Minister John Baird and Canada’s trade commission office in Tunisia. It cited the ban on journalists
DFAIT
by military courts and anti-democratic articles in the penal code. [The Ennahda party proposed a bill with punishments of up to two years in prison or a fine for offences against “the sacred.” “These articles,” says Amnesty International, “date back to the Ben Ali era which prescribe punishments for violating sacred values, disturbing public order and morals and have been used to stifle journalists, bloggers and artists.”] If Tunisia doesn’t change these, how can there be freedom of speech?
Foreign Affairs John Baird, centre, met with Moncef Marzouki in December. They were joined by Sébastien Beaulieu, Canada's ambassador to Tunisia.
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Spring 2013 | APR-MAY-JUN