How big a 'crisis' is the flow of migrants to Europe really?

In the north African country Tunisia, where authorities have intensified an operation to intercept migrants who are planning to reach Europe by crossing the Mediterranean sea. The Tunisian National Guard says it has arrested smugglers and stopped more than two-thousand people in its coastal cities, most people have been held back in the city of Sfax.

 

Amid the Sudan crisis, an information battle

 

Alongside the fighting in Sudan, there’s a battle of narratives while grassroots are pushing information out. Plus, the rise of racist rhetoric in Tunisia.

The Sudanese capital, Khartoum, looks like a war zone these days, as two generals and their armies fight for control of one country. Both are pushing their narratives on social media and jostling for command of the state-run airwaves.

Traveling Tunisia - Mediterranean journey

 

Tunisia: The referendum and the ramifications for the media

 

Tunisians have been among the freest to voice dissent in the Arab world but a constitutional change threatens that freedom. Plus, LGBTQphobia in Ghana’s media.

As Tunisia prepares to vote on a controversial new constitution, President Kais Saied’s continuing power grab risks reversing the country’s hard-won media freedoms.

Healing the wounds of abuse in Tunisia

The Truth and Dignity Commission in Tunisia investigates 62,000 cases of government abuse.

Victims of abuse under successive dictatorships in Tunisia are speaking out on live television, telling their stories of rape, torture, and police brutality.

The first public hearing was on Thursday and there are more to come.

The testimonies date back more than 60 years.

The commission was set up three years ago, aiming to help Tunisians come to terms with a brutal period in their history.

Tunisia's Dirty Secret

Five years after the revolution, Tunisia's black minority has yet to experience the freedoms enjoyed by other citizens.

In January 2011, driven to despair by high unemployment, food inflation, corruption, a lack of political freedom and poor living conditions, Tunisians ousted President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali and introduced democracy to their country.

As the celebrations of this remarkable achievement began to quieten down, people got ready to enjoy the benefits of liberty - especially those to do with fairness, human rights and equality.

And indeed, many of those benefits did follow; even though many Tunisians continue to feel economically marginalised and the country faces security problems, for the most part the repression that was such a feature of the Ben Ali years has gone. Tunisia is widely regarded as one of the few successes of the Arab Spring.

Tunisia's Dirty Secret

Five years after the revolution, Tunisia's black minority has yet to experience the freedoms enjoyed by other citizens.

In January 2011, driven to despair by high unemployment, food inflation, corruption, a lack of political freedom and poor living conditions, Tunisians ousted President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali and introduced democracy to their country.

As the celebrations of this remarkable achievement began to quieten down, people got ready to enjoy the benefits of liberty - especially those to do with fairness, human rights and equality.

And indeed, many of those benefits did follow; even though many Tunisians continue to feel economically marginalised and the country faces security problems, for the most part the repression that was such a feature of the Ben Ali years has gone. Tunisia is widely regarded as one of the few successes of the Arab Spring.

After the Arab Spring

Five young Arabs from countries that went through the 2011 revolutions reflect on what has happened five years on.


In December 2010, protests broke out in Tunisia which led to the first of the series of revolutions that became known as the Arab Spring.

In this film, five young people from Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen, Syria and Libya look back at the revolutions in their respective countries - at the effect these revolutions have had on their lives, at what has happened since, and their hopes and fears for the future.

Insaf Qasmi, from Tunis, was 15 during the uprising and now studies media and management at university. "Today's Tunisia is better than yesterday's Tunisia," she says, and feels that civil society needs to be strengthened for the country to succeed.

Where is post-revolution Tunisia heading?

Five years after their popular uprising, Tunisians remain divided about their country's future.


It has been five years since the beginning of Tunisia's revolution, a popular uprising that has been credited with setting off a wave of protests across north Africa and the Middle East. Many now see it as the only success of the so-called Arab Spring.

Tunisia has a new constitution and free elections and has become a model of democratic progress.

But there are worries about a growing number of attacks and the government's response to them, as well as a lack of jobs for young people.

Torture in Tunisia

We investigate allegations that despite its new democratic institutions, police torture continues in Tunisia.


It has been four years now since a popular uprising in Tunisia ousted former president Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali. It was hoped then that the Jasmine revolution - and the democratic governments to which it gave birth - would usher in a new era; that consensus politics and the rule of law would be reflected in the actions of those supposed to protect society from criminality, wherever it lies.

State repression, so much a feature of the old regime, was meant to be at an end; police brutality, torture and the abuse of human rights were to be consigned to history.

But this, it seems, may have been wishful thinking. As this People & Power investigation has found, while police brutality is no longer officially sanctioned by the state, it continues unabated nonetheless. Many of those responsible for enforcing the rule of law in Tunisia are themselves still breaking it, time after time.

ISIL ideology: In the name of Islam?

Attacks in Tunisia and Kuwait further complicate the complex combination of religion, conflict and extremism.


The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) has claimed responsibility for the attacks in Kuwait and Tunisia, which killed at least 65 people.

Tourists were gunned down as they relaxed on a beach, while worshipers were killed in a suicide attack on a Shia mosque.

The attacks have prompted more promises from the international community to fight what's referred to as the "scourge of terrorism".

ISIL had earlier called on followers to turn the month of Ramadan - considered holy by Muslims – into "calamities for non-believers".

But is religion at the heart of the armed group's violent ideology? Is the end game more about politics and power?

And how will this shape the fight against ISIL's message, its violence and its broader ambitions?

Several killed as gunmen attack Tunisia tourist hotel

At least seven killed near Sousse, with ongoing exchanges of gunfire reported between attackers and security forces.

The attack was on the Imperial Marhaba hotel, local radio said, according to the Reuters news agency. Other reports indicated that two hotels may have been attacked.

Al Jazeera's Nazanine Moshiri, reporting from Tunis, said that local reports indicated that gunmen may have specifically targeted tourists at the resort - but that the reports have not yet been confirmed. 

There were no other details immediately available.

Tunisia has been on high alert since March when gunmen attacked the Bardo museum in Tunis, killing a group of foreign tourists in one of the worst attacks in a decade in the North African country.

Our correspondent said that the new attack would be another blow to the country's economy, which relies heavily on tourism. 

Tunis attack: Gunmen kill tourists in museum raid

At least seven foreign tourists and a Tunisian have been killed after gunmen targeted a museum in the the Tunisian capital, officials say.

There were unconfirmed reports that tourists from several European countries had been taken hostage.

The shooting happened at the Bardo Museum, which is next to the parliament building in central Tunis.

At the time of the attack deputies were discussing anti-terrorism legislation. Parliament has now been evacuated.


An interior ministry spokesman told Reuters that two militants were holed up inside the museum, surrounded by security forces.


The museum, renowned for its collection of antiquities, is a major tourist attraction in Tunis.