WSIS: Meeting Tunisian Civil Society – and Tunisian Secret Police
Participants of a workshop organized by the Heinrich Boell Foundation and the Tunisian Association of Democratic Women have experienced the everyday reality of social-political activism under an authoritarian repressive regime. At least 40-50 plain-clothes police and security agents blocked the entrance, pushed away by-standers, and generated an atmosphere of intimidation.
The workshop was supposed to bring the international partners of the Boell Foundation together with members of the independent (i.e. not government-controlled) civil society. But the Tunisian authorities were not willing to let this happen. Those participants who arrived early were able to enter the building of the meeting, but at the minute that the meeting was supposed to start, a cloud of plain-clothes security officers (many in suits and ties) moved to the front door and blocked the building from then on. Everyone approaching the building, including journalists and lawyers, was pushed away. Even a member of the European union delegation was prevented from entering the meeting rooms. As the meeting went on, police outside cleared the whole street and did not even allow people to get near the building.
posted by Fergie @ 11/15/2005 01:16:00 PM
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