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Tunisia in permanent mobilization for Palestine but the law criminalizing normalization with Israel is temporarily blocked
In the last week of October, demonstrations took place again in front of the French and American embassies with the request to expel their respective ambassadors, on 26 October there was also a sit-in in front of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in which demonstrator asked explicitly the expulsion of the five ambassadors of the USA, United Kingdom, Germany, France and Italy who signed the declaration of 8 October which affirmed full support for Israel and condemned “the terrorist attacks of Hamas”.
From 7 October to today, exactly one month after the start of the “Al-Aqsa Flood” operation launched by Hamas together with the other forces of the Palestinian Resistance (Islamic Jihad and Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine), the Coordination for the Joint Action for Palestine in Tunisia (CJAPT) launched over 10 protest demonstrations in front of the two embassies, some of them at night in immediate response to the events (for example on the evening of 31 October a demonstration was called in front of the French embassy in response to the bombing of the Jabalya refugee camp in which
400 people died), the UGTT union has so far organized two marches in the city centre, in addition to the numerous spontaneous demonstrations in front of the Municipal Theater and once again at the French embassy, both in Avenue Bourghiba, in the center of Tunis, where young students and citizens gather spontaneously armed with Palestinian flags and chanting slogans against Zionist aggression and the imperialist states in support of it.The City of Culture, the largest cultural centre in the country, organized the Palestinian cinema week from 31 October to 5 November while youth collectives have been organizing screenings of Palestinian films for two weeks on the wall of the French Institute in Tunis and in some squares.
Since last week, however, the “internal front” has opened: in addition to the aforementioned demonstration in front of the MFE, on November 1st and 2nd the CJAPT organized sit-ins in front of Parliament gathered for the discussion of the proposed law on the criminalization of normalization with relations with Israel
The bill had already been presented months ago, but following the events of 7 October in Palestine, over 90 parliamentarians signed it (more than 50%) and the street protests “mandated” an immediate discussion.
The proposed law provides for prison sentences for natural and legal persons and public bodies who have any type of economic, cultural, sporting relationship, etc. with the Zionist entity of Israel. Furthermore, in the days following October 7, the president of the republic Kais Saied himself had stated that he had given instructions for parliament to begin the discussion.
On November 1st, the discussion which would continue with the possible ballot actually opened in parliament, however the opening of the session took place with a twist: in the speech the president of parliament “felt obliged to inform the parliamentarians” that he had conferred with the president of the republic who had branded the bill as “dangerous for the national interests of the country”.
It is no coincidence that the two parliamentary blocs “Honesty and Work” and “Freedom for the Republic” (close to the president of the republic) made instructions asking to postpone the discussion but were placed in the minority, despite this, the attempt to vote the law as a whole, it was decided to vote article by article and the session was postponed to the day after Thursday 2 November.
Once parliament reconvened, Bouderbala refused to open the session and postponed the discussion indefinitely.
In the evening, the President of the Republic Kais Saied intervened directly with a speech to the nation on the Palestinian question and parliamentary events, stating with sophisms that “normalization” is a “language of defeat” while “we are in a war of national liberation”, the support for Zionism in Tunisia would rather have to do with the concept of “national treason” already foreseen by an article of the penal code, the president also made a point of remembering that the 2022 Constitution (which he personally drafted) clearly provides for the right of Palestinians to full self-determination across the entire territory of historic Palestine (therefore considering the 1948 borders), finally since the two states have no official relationship, there would be no need to criminalize any normalization that does not exists according to him.
The law that potentially could have criminalized Tunisian businessmen who instead trade with Israel, travel agencies who organize tourist trips with legal tricks stics between the two States or “not very attentive” university departments, was temporarily archived.
In the meantime, however, the boycott of brands indirectly linked to Israel is gaining ground, on supermarket shelves many products such as Coca Cola or Danone have remained unsold for days despite the prices of these products having been reduced.
The Tunisian Campaign of Boycott and Opposition to Normalization with the Zionist entity addressed President Saied on Sunday 5 November with a statement with an eloquent title
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