Relying upon a broad anti-terrorism law passed in 2003, President Zine supported the U.S. war on terrorism by making hundreds of arbitrary arrests and engaging in official torture. Zine increasingly controlled news, information, and the Internet, and he targeted journalists with harassment, violence and constant surveillance.
Originally founded upon socialist principles, modern Tunisia developed a large middle class and encouraged the liberation of women. One-third of its university professors are women, as are 58% of its university students, more than one-fourth of its judges, and 23% of its members of parliament.
Even since its independence, Tunisia has promulgated the most progressive policies on women found in Arab nations. The Code of Personal Status adopted in 1956 abolished polygamy, prohibited husbands from unilaterally obtaining divorces, gave their wives greater custody rights and allowed them to vote. Tunisian women can legally obtain government-subsidized abortions without their husband's permission.
The liberal nationalists who established the government believed that the improvement of women's rights was an integral part of creating a modern country free from "anachronistic traditions and backward mentalities."
Tunisia signed the U.N. Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women in 1980 and ratified it in 1985.
Educated women with a mature appreciation of their civil rights were at the vanguard of those marching for freedom in Tunisia; however, they are also the ones with the most to lose, if religious fundamentalists come to power and those freedoms are erased. Concerned protestors carried signs that read, "Politics ruins religion and religion ruins politics."
Security forces have already been deployed to protect legally-sanctioned brothels from a mob of religious zealots, and there is concern about the rights of women who wear western dress, including bikinis on beaches. The unsettled conditions have caused many women to be afraid to walk outside alone at night.
The leadership of Ennahdha, a political movement allied with the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, has stated it is opposed to the imposition of Islamic law in Tunisia. However, women have witnessed the loss of progressive women's rights in three other Islamic nations, including Iran after the fall of the Shah, Afghanistan with the rise of the Taliban, and Iraq following the U.S. invasion.
To a certain extent, Tunisian women were protected from Islamic extremists by the repressive Zine government; however, for now, they can only wait and see how the Jasmine Revolution evolves.
United States
Ronald Reagan once said that "America is a shining city upon a hill whose beacon light guides freedom-loving people everywhere;" however, the reality is that the United States has come to be controlled by a military-industrial oligarchy to which both major political parties are subservient.
Instead of a beacon of liberty, the United States supports the suppression of freedom in other countries and increasingly denies the constitutional rights of its own citizens, particularly women.
The United States Constitution was established by the "We the People;" however, neither it nor the subsequent Bill of Rights embraced slaves or women within its protection.
The Civil War resulted in the 13th and 14th Amendments that abolished slavery and prohibited the states from abridging the rights of their "citizens," and the 15th Amendment that guaranteed the right to vote to former slaves.
Efforts to guarantee the right of women suffrage was blocked by Southern conservatives in the U.S. Senate, forcing women activists to secure the amendment of every single state constitution! After almost 800 separate political campaigns, women received the universal right to vote in 1920 with passage of the 19th Amendment.
Today, 90 years later, the U.S. Congress only seats 17 women senators (17%) and 72 women representatives (16.6%). These percentages are far less than the number of women legislators in either Iraq or Tunisia.
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