HUMAN RIGHTS DURING THE ARAB SPRING: INSTITUTIONAL AND MEDIA ASPECTS Philosophical perspective
Human rights were created by modern Western thinkers to protect individual from an overwhelming power of the absolutist state Crimes of ordinary individuals violate only state's law Human rights can only be violated by state Sociological perspective
Different types of authoritarian regimes have different logic of survival, therefore, different motivation to abuse human rights
Violence is usually considered to be highest in weak non-democratic regimes due to their inability to bring security or peacefully integrate all members of the polity Cases: Egypt, Tunisia, Libya, Syria
Such regimes were predominant among the Arab countries where revolutions occurred
While monarchies or single party regimes can always appeal to tradition or nationalism, neopatrimonial personalist rulers rely on narrow ruling clique which has monopolized most of country's economy and is simply extracting resources while not giving much benefit to the general population Perspective of protesters
Protesters can't make compromises with such dictators because the mere change of let's say prime minister will not change the whole system of closed and extractive political and therefore economic institutions > protesters willusually demand the fall of regime in corpore Perspective of dictator
The dictator plays zero-sum game, which means that if he fails it will be the end of his ruling clique/tribe/clan and probably his own exodus if not death. So he and his allies as well as protesters will do everything to remain in power, including brutal use of force > closed personalist type of ruling will generate most violence and abuse of human rights Instruments for oppression
The usual instrument for the personalist tyrant to oppress his opponents is security forces Army, of course, is the key element because of its overwhelming firepower Because of army's capabilities to organize coup d'etat tyrant is condemned to always distrust officers and therefore try to some extent limit and marginalize their power. But if army (in personalist regime) is not heavily connected to the ruling elite (for example, does not belong to the same religious group), it has its own policies, too Egypt and Tunisia
In Egypt or Tunisia Mubarak and Ben Ali deeply distrusted armed forces but due to their influence wasn't able to minimize their power In Egypt future-dictator Gamal Mubarak distanced himself from officers and made friends among business elite When revolutions happened army was not so much interested in preserving the dictators who were trying to outplay officers. For them, it was better to position themselves as the ones that rescued the revolution and thus have strong positions in new regime Libya and Syria
Kaddafi distrusted his armed forces to such level that he relied more on his personal mercenary gangs than on strong armed forces Assad's military is extremely loyal to their leader because he and his officers belong to the same Shia religious minority group Both types of regimes are more tend to violate human rights and thereby demonstrate higher level of violence because in Libya mercenaries don't have any other interests except serving the leader for payment or in Syria's the downfall of regime will eliminate the whole religious group from power Conclusion
Human rights were invented as a tool to protect citizens from the overwhelming power of state Personalist neopatrimonial regimes don't have any ideological justification; therefore, they remain in office by imposing extractive economic institutions and then buying the necessary support Military in Egypt and Tunisia had their own interests and the society was not divided so much that it would be necessary for armed forces to protect the dictator at all cost. While in Libya and Syria armed forces were either weak or represented religious minority and had no chance but brutally oppress opposition. Therefore, the level of human rights abuse was higher The network in the Tunisian thawra Internet, Mobile phones, Satellite TV, Video cameras
New medi a facilitated spillover + crossmediality
To denounce corruption and poverty, to organize and coordinate protests, to record documents and events. Cyber-Dissidence: blogosphere likeCyberdissidence a self-made democratic arena 2009: 600 active blogs 2010: 500 active blogs (for the the government’s repressive measures)
Topics discussed: political issues and taboo subjects
Language: freely used + neologisms (Ben Ali = Ali Baba; stealing= Trabelsi; Ben Ali’s supporters = mauvistes) International dimension
• Crucial role in supporting popular struggle
•Roleofthebridges
• Role of the international group Anonymous to bypass the ATI’s censorship Lina Ben Mhenni Sami Ben Gharbia
•author of Tunisia Prison Map • co-founder of Nawaat (a Tunisian collective blog - about news and politcs - alternative to TUNeZine).
Slim Amamou
writes in French; Kasbah 2 imprisoned criticized for being appointed as Secretary for Sport and Youth of the transitional government Takriz •Mailing list, e-mag, virtual network 1998 by Foetus and Waterman
•Strategy: anonymity + slang and curvas of football stadium
• The Tunisian Pirate Party (2011)