Word: ali
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...there are a few problems. Nearly six months since Moreno-Ocampo gave the U.N. Security Council a warrant for the arrest of Harun and Ali Kushayb, a leader of the government-backed janjaweed militia, neither man has been delivered to the Hague. After initially cooperating with Moreno-Ocampo, Sudan now rejects the ICC's authority to try those involved in Darfur's atrocities. And with the world pushing for a truce between the government and Darfur's feuding rebel groups, the cause of justice may well become a casualty of a negotiated peace. Having spent 18 months preparing the case...
...under pressure from his Western allies, Ben Ali set aside 20% of seats in parliament for opposition parties. The multiparty system is "the government's décor, to show the world it tolerates opposition parties," says Eric Goldstein, Middle East and North Africa research director for Human Rights Watch. "But it does its utmost to silence and marginalize them...
...political challenge to Ben Ali has so far proved ineffective. Opposition candidates were allowed to run for President in 1999 and 2004, but some opposition parties endorsed Ben Ali - who won 94% of the vote three years ago. Officials insist that this reflects genuine support, rather than a lack of choice. "Ben Ali is more than a party leader; he is a national leader," says Zouheir M'Daffar, the Minister in charge of administrative reform. Although the next presidential election is two years away, Tunis is already decorated with billboards imploring Ben Ali to run again in 2009. "The succession...
Tunisia's largest trading partner, France, broke years of silence over the country's human-rights record when President Nicolas Sarkozy visited Tunis last July. He told Ben Ali he was concerned about the arrest of a prominent lawyer, Mohammed Abbou, on what some regarded as dubious charges of assaulting a colleague and defaming the judiciary. Abbou was freed shortly after, ending two years in jail. In late October, the European Parliament's human-rights committee head, Hélène Flautre, visited Chebbi in the fourth week of his hunger strike, and told reporters that Tunisia's policies...
...says government spokesman Oussama Romdhani. "Why open a Pandora's box by giving fundamentalists a political party? We are sitting peacefully." But even strict secularist laws might not shield Tunisia from growing Muslim fervor in the region. "Before, you never saw a woman veiled in Tunis," says Amel Belhadj Ali, a journalist for the Tunis magazine L'Expression, sitting in her office in jeans and a T shirt. "Now you see more and more." Anti-American sentiment may also be on the rise. The magazine's editor, Ridha Kéfi, hosts roundtable discussions between intellectuals and government officials...