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Human Rights Watch: Tunisia: Police Inaction Allowed Assault on Film Screening<\/strong><\/font><\/h2>\n<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n
L’express: Ben Ali prend 15 ans de prison pour trafics de drogue et d’armes<\/strong><\/font><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n
AP: Tunisie: retrait des avocats de la d\u00e9fense au proc\u00e8s Ben Ali<\/strong><\/font><\/h3>\n<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n
Kapitalis: Qui a agress\u00e9 les communistes tunisiens \u00e0 la Cit\u00e9 Ettadhamen?<\/font> <\/strong><\/font><\/h3>\n<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n
Business News: Le PDP lance la campagne \u00abTunisiens volontaires\u00bb<\/strong><\/font><\/h3>\n<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n
La Croix: Les Tunisiens r\u00e9clament les fruits de leurs sacrifices<\/strong><\/font><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n
RTL: Tunisie, 6 mois apr\u00e8s: \u00e0 l\u2019int\u00e9rieur de l\u2019Int\u00e9rieur, \u00e7a d\u00e9zingue grave<\/strong><\/font><\/h3>\n<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n
SwissInfo: Ces Tunisiens en transit vers un improbable eldorado<\/strong><\/font><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n
Tekiano: Tunisie : La Corruption, cauchemar du Ministre de la Culture<\/strong><\/font><\/h3>\n<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n
Ali Ben Mabrouk : Tunisie. Des partis en mal d\u2019inspiration<\/strong><\/font><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n
Jamel Dridi: Les faux terroristes islamistes tunisiens veulent confisquer la d\u00e9mocratie<\/strong><\/font><\/h3>\n<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n
Liberation: La musique arabe porte en elle la \u00ab\u00a0diversit\u00e9\u00a0\u00bb selon le ma\u00eetre Anouar Brahem<\/strong><\/font><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/font><\/p>\n
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Human Rights Watch:<\/font> <\/font><\/font><\/p>\nTunisia: Police Inaction Allowed Assault on Film Screening<\/font><\/h3>\n<\/strong><\/div>\n
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(Tunis) – Police were slow to respond to violent protesters who broke into a Tunis cinema showing a controversial documentary on June 26, 2011, and who attacked theatergoers, Human Rights Watch said today. The dismissive response by the police to requests for assistance was a failure to protect the right to free expression, Human Rights Watch said. <\/font> Several dozen protesters forced their way into the screening of a film on atheism in Tunisia, Secularism, If God Wills<\/em>. The film was part of a cultural evening at the AfricARt Cinema, sponsored by the Arab Institute for Human Rights and organized by Closing Ranks (Lam Echaml), a collective of Tunisian associations and creative artists. The evening’s program, called \u00ab\u00a0Hands Off Our Artists,\u00a0\u00bb was presented in support of Tunisians who have been assaulted, threatened, and denounced by persons who consider their artistic creations offensive to Islam. <\/font> \u00ab\u00a0Tunisian police should have moved quickly to protect the audience and organizers of the film,\u00a0\u00bb said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East and North Africa director at Human Rights Watch. \u00ab\u00a0The government – including the police – have a duty to protect the right of Tunisians to create and view art, whatever its point of view and however offensive it may be to others.\u00a0\u00bb <\/font> The police nearby were aware of the threat to the film screening but took no action to deter violence and responded to the attack without urgency, Human Rights Watch said. Police who visited the scene before the protest suggested to the organizers that they cancel the film, the organizers said, rather than move to protect the cinema from potential violence. Artists who tried to summon the police when the attack began said they were met with dismissive comments about their purported opposition to the former government and the security forces. <\/font> Online commentators, including on Facebook, have vilified the documentary under its former title, Neither Allah Nor Master<\/em> (Ni Allah ni Ma\u00eetre<\/em>) and its director, Nadia al-Fani, a Franco-Tunisian, largely because al-Fani has openly declared her atheism in interviews on Tunisian television and made it the subject of her film. Al-Fani has received numerous online death threats. <\/font> Organizers of the event told Human Rights Watch that they had provided local authorities advance notice of the event, as required by law. One of the organizers, Mounir Ba\u00e2ziz, the president of the Association of Tunisian Filmmakers (Association des Cin\u00e9astes Tunisiens), said that a colleague had phoned the police earlier in the afternoon when the organizers noticed some men outside the cinema who aroused their suspicions. At about 4 p.m., two plainclothes policemen arrived. When the organizers told them the subject of the film, the policemen advised them not to show it, Ba\u00e2ziz told Human Rights Watch. <\/font> A short time later, a crowd of men and women formed in front of the cinema chanting \u00ab\u00a0Allah is Great,\u00a0\u00bb and \u00ab\u00a0There is no God but Allah and Muhammad is His Messenger.\u00a0\u00bb Some carried black flags bearing the latter phrase. The protest, which lasted about 30 minutes, can be seen in a <\/font>video clip posted online<\/font><\/a>.<\/font> Although the theater is less than 100 meters from the nearest police station and the interior ministry headquarters and the street is typically heavily policed, police did not arrive to protect theatergoers until after the protesters had smashed the doors and assaulted patrons inside. <\/font> Mohamed Bahri Ben Yahmed, a filmmaker who belongs to Lam Echaml, told Human Rights Watch: <\/font> At about 5:15 p.m., the persons who were shouting outside the cinema all of a sudden surged toward the entrance, smashing the glass doors and display cases. A minority of them forced their way inside, hitting some of the artists present who tried to block their passage, including Mounir Ba\u00e2ziz. One of them sprayed Habib Belhadi [director of the AfricArt cinema] and Sadok Ben Mhenni [one of those present for the screening] with some kind of teargas spray. I was terrified and ran inside the theater, while the attackers climbed the stairs. <\/font> Belhadi added, \u00ab\u00a0There were probably 60 or 80 of them outside. When I tried to prevent some of them from entering, they sprayed me with teargas, and another hit me with an iron bar.\u00a0\u00bb Belhadi sustained moderate injuries from being struck in the face and sprayed in the eyes with the teargas. <\/font>