Zakia Dhifaoui
Zakia Dhifaoui is a teacher, journalist and Tunisian human rights activist who fought especially against the regime of Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali, before the Tunisian revolution of 2011. Her decisive career showed the emergence of protest movements and somehow independent press, in the final months of the presidency of Ben Ali, despite the pressure against her.
Biography
Originally from Kairouan, a city 150 kilometers southwest of Tuniset, fifty kilometers west of Sousse, she began her career as a history and geography teacher in a high school in that city in 1994.[1].
A member of the Democratic Forum for Labor and Liberties (also called Ettakatol), an initially clandestine party, in January 2007, she participated in the creation of the Arabic weekly Mouwatinoun. She is one of the founding members of the National Council for Liberties in Tunisia . ; she is also a member of the Anti-Torture Association in Tunisia and the local section of the Tunisian Human Rights League . [2].
In July 2008, she decided to go to Redeyef to collect testimonie with families involved in the Gafsa strikess. The situation was very tense in Tunisia. President Ben Ali, who had already been in power for 21 years, announced his intention to run for fifth term. [3]
Upon her arrival on 27 July, she participated in a women's demonstration in solidarity with the striking workers. She was, however, arrested with six other protesters, and sexually assaulted.[4]. On 14 August 2008, she was sentenced by the Gafsa Court to eight months in prison. She was charged with "insubordination, disturbances of public order" , obstruction of an official in the performance of his duties, deterioration of the property of others and breach of morality “.[5] She remained in detention for 200 days, before receiving a pardon on the occasion of the twenty-first anniversary of President Ben Ali's coming to power.[6]
References
- ^ Article ([[Special:EditPage/{{{1}}}|edit]] | [[Talk:{{{1}}}|talk]] | [[Special:PageHistory/{{{1}}}|history]] | [[Special:ProtectPage/{{{1}}}|protect]] | [[Special:DeletePage/{{{1}}}|delete]] | [{{fullurl:Special:WhatLinksHere/{{{1}}}|limit=999}} links] | [{{fullurl:{{{1}}}|action=watch}} watch] | logs | views)
- ^ "Zakia Dhifaoui. Contre le régime policier de Ben Ali" (PDF). rsf.org (in French). 8 March 2018. Retrieved 4 March 2019.
- ^ Une combattante derrière les barreaux en Tunisie. Zakia Dhifaoui, militante des droits de l'homme
- ^ Rihab Boukhayatia (15 January 2019). "Les féministes tunisiennes de la lutte contre la dictature jusqu'à aujourd'hui à travers ce nouvel ouvrage de l'ATFD". huffpostmaghreb.com (in French). Retrieved 4 March 2019.
- ^ Tunisia: Sentencing of Ms. Zakia Dhifaoui to eight months in prison
- ^ Tunisia: Conditional release of Ms. Zakia Dhifaoui