I think that part of our resistance was to develop the human rights culture and the human rights education. And make it part of our attempt to introduce the human rights culture in the society and to reinforce our presence in the societies. And concerning the human rights education, we developed a strategy to introduce human rights in the curricula in the school system. We started in 1996 by analyzing the school curricula and the school books in 13 Arab countries. It was about hundreds of school books. And the idea was to analyze the perception of Arabs to human rights issues, women´s issues.
Their perception of the other religions, minorities, through the school system. How they deal with all these issues in the school system. And having in mind that all the oppressive regimes start by developing their oppression inside schools and using schools and the school system to develop their oppressive regimes. We started to analyze how this functions in the schools. After all this analysis, we brought all these results and we organized meetings with the civil society organizations, working on education and human rights and women´s rights.
The representatives of the ministries of education of these countries. And the responsibilities of directors of curricula within the ministries of education. And we organized three main meetings. And we developed what we call the Arab strategy for the human rights education in the school system. This strategy was based on three main orientations. First, to suggest new schoolbooks. And using the human rights as a framework for the schoolbooks.
The second orientation was to develop the capacities of the responsibilities of curricula and the teachers, develop their capacities to analyze schoolbooks. And to integrate human rights and their work. And the third strategy was to lobby some ministries of education and develop a kind of human rights education strategy, national strategies. And I think that we succeeded in first, in training many people from the school system on human rights issues.
We developed some solutions or developed some curricula based on human rights. And the third issue is that we also we developed very close relationships with some ministers of education. And we´ve been part of the reform of the education system. In Morocco, for example, we´ve been invited by the ministry of education to be part of all this important reform of the education system. We´ve been also asked by the Tunisian Government to be part of some reflection about how to introduce human rights in the school system.
We did the same thing with Qatar, with Bahrain. And I think that one of the main results of this work, we demonstrated that human rights education can be used as a tool and a strategy to reform the education in general, to introduce the human rights issues was not only to teach human rights. At a time when all Arabs were really hostile to the reform of the school system and the introduction of human rights, because of the– you remember all the speeches about reforming the education system, coming from USA and other Arab– western countries. We demonstrated the value of this work that we can adopt the universal human rights principles in reforming our activities with a kind of local approach and local energy production.
Abdel Basset Ben Hassen is a Tunisian freedom advocate who has dedicated much of his adult life to the promotion of human rights in the Arab world. His interest in the field was sparked during his university days while participating in student political movements that focused on promoting democracy and human rights.
After graduation, Ben Hassen joined the Arab Institute for Human Rights (AIHR) where he worked to train thousands of freedom activists across the region on developing strategies for promoting their causes. Later, he joined the Ford Foundation in Egypt and worked directly with farmers, fisherman, and laborers in depressed areas to encourage greater human rights discourse and educate the poor on their basic rights. These efforts proved challenging as authoritarian leaders in the Middle East and Africa posed numerous roadblocks to the work of civil society in promoting human rights and political initiatives. As a result, many were afraid to work for or cooperate with such organizations.
Today, Ben Hassen is the President of AIHR and serves as a prominent voice in the international community for promoting human rights in the Arab world. Ben Hassen is also the chair of the Tunisian National Committee for the Support to Refugees and served as a member of Tunisia’s High Committee for the Realization of the Objectives of the Revolution, Political Reform and Democratic Transition.
In addition to his advocacy work, Ben Hassen is a poet whose books have been translated into French, Italian, and German.
Tunisia is situated on the Mediterranean coastline. It has a population of fewer than 11 million people and is the smallest nation in North Africa in land area. In 2010 and 2011, it became the first of the Arab countries to revolt against decades of dictatorial rule, launching the Arab Spring and a wave of change across the region. Tunisia has a developing economy, focused largely on agriculture, tourism, and light industry.
Tunisia has been settled since ancient times. In the 10th century B.C., it was part of the Phoenician Empire. The city of Carthage, near the modern capital of Tunis, was established in the 9th century B.C. In 149 B.C., the Roman Empire conquered the Phoenicians. Islam was introduced to what is now Tunisia in the 7th century A.D., and the area formed part of the Ottoman Empire for centuries. In 1881, Tunisia became a protectorate of France. A strong French cultural element continues to this day.
In 1956, Habib Bourguiba led Tunisia to independence from France. His political party, later known as the Constitutional Democratic Rally, went on to dominate Tunisian politics for more than 50 years. Bourguiba’s Tunisia was a largely secular state and was viewed as one of the most progressive in the Arab world on women’s issues. In 1987, Bourguiba was replaced in a “bloodless coup” by his prime minister, Zine El Abidine Ben Ali. Ben Ali continued many of Bourguiba’s policies, but ruled with an increasingly heavy hand. The Ben Ali regime was repressive and corrupt, with a dismal human rights record. The regime showed little tolerance for dissent, and lashed out at opposition voices in politics, civil society, and the media.
The Tunisian Revolution began in December 2010, when Mohamed Bouazizi, a young street vendor, set himself on fire in protest over harassment by a local official. Bouazizi’s act led to mass demonstrations across the country, protesting the lack of human rights, poor economic conditions, and corruption and nepotism in the Ben Ali regime. On January 14, 2011, Ben Ali stepped down and fled the country. On October 23, 2011, Tunisia held its first free elections, forming a Constituent Assembly to draft a new constitution and lead the country to general elections. The role of religion in society is among the most important issues facing the assembly and country.
Under the interim Constituent Assembly, Tunisia has experienced considerable political upheaval, but has begun to consolidate its democracy. There is a major fault line between Islamist and secular political forces. In 2013, several political assassinations resulted in widespread protests and demonstrators calling for the nation’s Islamist-led government to be removed. In January of 2014, after two years of debate, the Constituent Assembly ratified the nation’s new constitution. The constitution is considered progressive for the nation and has many human rights guarantees. With the ratification of the constitution, elections are scheduled for autumn 2014.
Freedom House’s 2013 Freedom in the World report categorized Tunisia as “partly free”. The nation received the following ratings on a scale with one being the most free and seven being the least: 3.5 as an overall freedom rating, a four in civil liberties and a three in political rights. Tunisia’s Internet and press were also categorized as “partly free” in subsequent Freedom House reports.
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