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Kumi
Ghana
57 Posts |
 Posted - 20 Jan 2011 : 02:56:30
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Some 33 members of ousted Tunisian President Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali's family have been held, state TV says.
It said that they were arrested as they tried to leave the country.
In a televised speech, interim leader Fouad Mebazaa vowed a "total break" with the past, an independent justice system and media freedoms.
In a separate development, the new government said it had freed all political prisoners. The reported move comes after weeks of mass protests.
More than 100 people have reportedly died in the unrest, the UN said, promising to carry out an investigation.
Hundreds of protesters took to the streets again in the Tunisian capital Tunis, urging allies of the ousted president to stop clinging to power.
Waving banners and chanting, they called for all links to the old regime to be severed.
However, riot police did not respond with tear gas or water cannons, the BBC's Wyre Davies in Tunis reports.
While the situation remains tense, curfew hours have been reduced, traffic on the streets is increasing, political cartoons have appeared in the newly free press and some shops and businesses are reopening, our correspondent says.
Amnesty
"I guarantee that this transition government will ensure a total break with the past," Mr Mebazaa said on Wednesday.
Continue reading the main story
ˇ°Start Quote
All the people who came to this unity government will resign if the elections are not free and fair or the measures we have decided on are not carried out immediatelyˇ±
End Quote Najib Chebbi Unity government minister
* Tunisia unity cabinet: Your views
* Return of Tunisia's opposition
* Tunisia's credit rating downgraded
"Together we can write a new page in the history of our country."
In his first address to the nation since Mr Ben Ali fled to Saudi Arabia on Saturday, Mr Mebazaa also thanked the army for helping to maintain security, saying that the situation was returning to normal.
"We have discovered those responsible for the terror in our country. We have arrested these armed gangs."
He added that the priority for the new government would be to issue an amnesty for all political prisoners.
Najib Chebbi, an opposition leader who is now a member of the new cabinet, and Mustapha Ben Jafar, one of several new ministers who dropped out of the unity government, were both quoted by news agencies as saying that all the political prisoners were released on Wednesday.
They said these included members of a banned Islamist movement.
Separately, Tunisia's state news agency TAP said that the first of more than 1,800 prisoners who had been sentenced to less than six months were already being released.
Private jet
As the political turmoil continues, Tunisia's national unity cabinet is reported to have postponed its first meeting.
Continue reading the main story
TUNISIAN CABINET
* Mohammed Ghannouchi stays on as prime minister; a Ben Ali ally, he has been in the job since 1999, keeping his post throughout the unrest
* Interior Minister Ahmed Friaa, appointed by Mr Ben Ali to mollify demonstrators, retains post
* Foreign Minister Kamal Morjane retains post
* Najib Chebbi, founder of opposition Progressive Democratic Party, named as development minister
* Ahmed Ibrahim, leader of opposition Ettajdid party, named minister of higher education
* Mustafa ben Jaafar, leader of opposition Union of Freedom and Labour, named health minister but refused to take office
* Slim Amamou, prominent blogger who was arrested during protests, becomes secretary of state for youth and sport
* Tunisia: Key players
* Q&A: Tunisia crisis
* Return of Tunisia's opposition
Ministers in the new interim government are currently discussing how to resolve deep divisions over the inclusion in key posts of members of the former government.
Mr Chebbi told the BBC's Hardtalk programme he would resign if a free election failed to materialise within seven months.
"All the people who came to this unity government will resign if the elections are not free and fair or the measures we have decided on are not carried out immediately."
Mr Ben Ali fled to Saudi Arabia on Friday following a spate of violent protests across Tunisia over unemployment, poverty and corruption.
Four opponents of Mr Ben Ali resigned from the new unity government within a day of being appointed, in protest at the number of ministers from the old regime who were still included.
In Geneva, Swiss Foreign Minister Micheline Calmy-Rey announced a decision to freeze any funds of Mr Ben Ali held there.
Ms Calmy-Rey said Bern acted to prevent assets being withdrawn and also to ensure that a new Tunisian administration would be able to retrieve assets taken illicitly.
The ban also applies to any assets held by "his entourage", the foreign ministry said in a statement.
A Swiss judicial source told Reuters news agency that an association of Tunisians living in Switzerland had sought the freezing of assets including a building on Geneva's exclusive Rue du Rhone and a Falcon 9000 jet said to be at Geneva airport.
In other developments on Wednesday, the head of the Arab League, Amr Moussa, linked the upheaval in Tunisia to deteriorating economic conditions throughout the Arab world.
"The Arab soul is broken by poverty, unemployment and general recession," he said at the opening of an Arab League summit in the Egyptian resort of Sharm el-Sheikh.
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The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.
www.bookerzmedia.com |
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Kumi
Ghana
57 Posts |
Posted - 20 Jan 2011 : 03:05:10
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| I just worry about the family of Jammeh. When he is no more. |
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.
www.bookerzmedia.com |
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Moe
USA
2326 Posts |
Posted - 21 Jan 2011 : 08:03:32
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| A standard has been set already , Jawara's family was unharmed by the Junta and actually protected, Rest assured with all this cyber propaganda nothing will happen to Jammehs family..................Peace |
I am Jebel Musa better yet rock of Gibraltar,either or,still a stronghold and a Pillar commanding direction
The GPU wants Me Hunted Down for what I don't know ..... |
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Karamba
United Kingdom
3820 Posts |
Posted - 22 Jan 2011 : 00:32:59
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quote:
Originally posted by Kumi
I just worry about the family of Jammeh. When he is no more.
Not to worry Kumi,
When Jammeh is caged up, not just his family but all the dirty crooked hands holding for him will get a treat they deserve. |
Karamba |
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Senegambia
175 Posts |
Posted - 22 Jan 2011 : 13:21:06
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Tunisia Revolution: Africa's despots should Watch Out
In conservative Arab countries, revolutions hardly take place. Despots sit pretty in power and throw democracy out of the window. In Tunisia, deposed despot Ben Ali has been "winning elections" every electioneering year with 99 point something percent in a country where subjects hate him to the core. Who then has been voting in these elections for him? The reality is that no one dared challenge him. The process of elections have been a sham. He came to power through a coup and has maintained a strangling grip on the Tunisian people as in Libya, Egypt and Algeria, to mention just a few. Across in the Middle East, the same situation continued in Iraq under Saddam Hussein, in Syria as well among many others. The economies of all these countries are controlled by family and cronies of the despot leaders.
It is now emerging that revolutions are in the offing in these states. Tunisia has shown that it can be done. There is excitement in Egypt and Libya where despots rule. In Egypt, the despot (I will not call these Presidents) intends to hand over power to his son. They are already feeling jittery and vulnerable following Ben Ali's flight to exile under the people's chase.
This should be a wake up call to Kenya whose leaders want to spend Ksh 4.6 billion to defend alleged masterminds of the post election violence while the victims - the internally displaced persons have not been settled; Kenyan children cannot access quality and free primary education and are not even guaranteed places in Secondary schools after kenyans' taxes have been pilfered and while the counytry's citizens are among the most heavily taxed people in the world.
We need to monitor our governments. when their aspirations and the people's are not in tandem, they ought to be evicted from power through peaceful means such as the vote or simply running them out of town through peaceful demos.
The role of social media: blogs and forums is now vindicated in Tunisia's case. It is information on blogs and forums that fanned the revolution after mainstream media was blacked out from reporting how the revolution was spreading.
The AU should not allow African despots to use it as a platform to address Africa on democracy and ideas such as United States of Africa. How can despots have a vision for anything, leave alone Africa? Countries such as Ghana, South Africa and Botswana, bastions of African democracy, should break away from the AU and form a Union of African Democratric States where despots and those who do not respect the people's wishes at the ballot are not welcome and leave the AU to despots. It will soon lose legitimacy and ideas because the little legitimacy the AU enjoys is courtesy of democratic states as these ones.
By Otieno Sungu
The author is Chair of Vugu Vugu Mashinani-(VVM)
http://www.africanexecutive.com/modules/magazine/articles.php?article=5664&magazine=318
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Tesito
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Edited by - Senegambia on 22 Jan 2011 13:22:23 |
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Santanfara
3460 Posts |
Posted - 22 Jan 2011 : 15:23:04
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| Jawara was never a killer, neither the harrasser of innocent people, Hence, to compare their ultimate treament is a sick joke. Yahya will regret ever killing. |
Surah- Ar-Rum 30-22
"And among His signs is the creation of heavens and the earth, and the difference of your languages and colours. verily, in that are indeed signs for men of sound knowledge." Qu'ran
www.suntoumana.blogspot.com |
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| Bantaba in Cyberspace |
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