ISLAMISTS IN TUNISIA

C O N F I D E N T I A L TUNIS 000670 SIPDIS SIPDIS STATE FOR NEA/MAG - LAWRENCE AND NEA/PI PARIS AND LONDON FOR NEA WATCHERS E.O. 12958: DECL: 03/20/2016 TAGS: PREL KDEM PGOV TS SUBJECT: ISLAMISTS IN TUNISIA REF: A. TUNIS 425 ¶B. TUNIS 224 Classified By: AMBASSADOR WILLIAM HUDSON FOR REASONS 1.4 b & d ¶1. (C) SUMMARY: During a recent roundtable with Tunisian intellectuals and civil society activists, participants discussed the challenges and opportunities for Islamists in Tunisia. (NOTE: In this discussion, Islamists were defined as Islamic political activists. END NOTE.) While noting that direct communications with Islamists, including recently released leaders of the banned Islamic party an-Nahdha, might be useful, the government considers engaging these groups to be "crossing a red line." Due to the imprisonment and exile of many former an-Nahdha officials, a new generation of Islamists has developed in Tunisia. However, Islamists, like the other opposition and independent civil society groups, remain poorly organized due to government restrictions on speech and association. In order to combat these limitations, Islamists have joined an unlikely, and probably temporary, alliance with leftists to counter the GOT. END SUMMARY. ¶2. (C) According to some secular Tunisians, especially feminists, even those who now claim to be moderate Islamists would force women to wear the veil, allow polygamy and otherwise reverse many Tunisian social achievements of the past fifty years. Given this view, post organized a roundtable discussion on March 8 to discuss: Are Islamists is a real threat to Tunisia's historically secular government? Several prominent civil society activists and intellectuals participated: - Saida Akremi, lawyer and General Secretary for the Tunisia-based International Association for the Support of Political Prisoners (AISPP) - Lotfi Hajji, journalist and member of the 18 October Committee (18OC, Ref B) - Salaheddine Jourchi, journalist and First Vice President of the Tunisian Human Rights League (LTDH) - Hamadi Redissi, Professor of Political Science, University of Tunis The discussion was wide-ranging, but focused on the need for greater democracy in Tunisia and the relative strength of Islamists in the political system. ¶3. (C) According to Akremi, the only way to truly know what Islamists want is to speak directly with them. However, the GOT would consider any foreign or local outreach to former an-Nahdha leaders to be "crossing a red line." The "conditional freedom" of those recently released (Ref A), such as former al-Fejr editor Hamadi Jebali, could be restricted at any time if they are believed to be overstepping their boundaries. However, Hajji noted that this older generation of an-Nahdha leaders, including exiled leader Rachid Ghannouchi, no longer represents the true future of Islamists in Tunisia. As so many an-Nahdha members were imprisoned, live in exile, or denounced the group in the early nineties, a new generation of educated and thoughtful Islamists has developed in Tunisia. These individuals were an-Nahdha supporters as university students and are more politically savvy than the older generation, but politically inactive given the GOT's complete rejection of a political role for Islamists. ¶4. (C) Contrasting the relative freedom of the early 1980s under Bourguiba, when an-Nahdha's newspaper al-Fejr and other media enjoyed some degree of freedom, Akremi said Ben Ali's complete control over information has prevented any public debate on what Islamists in Tunisia hope to achieve - and what threat they represent to the secular system. The group lamented the absence of public debate on even the most minor domestic issues and said that, without open discussion, it was difficult to know what platform Islamists would present in a democratic system. While Jebali recently said, in an interview with Hajji for aljazeera.net, that an-Nahdha would not call for a return to polygamy, it is unclear for whom he is speaking - the defunct party of London-based Ghannouchi or an-Nahdha sympathizers in Tunisia today. Jourchi opined that an-Nahdha's medium-term focus is likely the release of their members from prison (and Jebali has said this openly in interviews). Once they are all released - and Akremi estimates there are about two hundred still imprisoned - the group would refocus its efforts on political activism. ¶5. (C) Despite the fears of secular Tunisians, the group felt strongly that Islamists are no better organized today than other opposition groups. This weakness has led, for the first time in Tunisia, to an alliance between leftist and Islamist political activists in the 18 October Committee (Ref B). Redissi said this is merely an alliance of convenience, as the two groups have such very different ideologies. However, the extent of GOT repression has driven some opposition activists together in an attempt to present a united front calling for increased political freedom. Redissi speculated that President Ben Ali might authorize an Islamic association or party to respond to these pressures, but Hajji and Jourchi said the required constitutional amendment to allow religious-based political party was unlikely. ¶6. (C) COMMENT: It is interesting to note that this group, some of whom have close ties to Islamist activists, did not feel there is widespread support in Tunisia for Islamists or that they are well-organized. This greatly contrasts with the fears from the secular side of the political spectrum. As long as many secular Tunisians support the GOT argument that Islamists and conservative religious thought represent a threat to Tunisian society, this fear will limit the development of grass-roots support for increased democracy in Tunisia. As post's Freedom Agenda stresses, any political reform here is dependent on increased freedom of expression and association, so that public debate of Tunisia's political future can begin. END COMMENT. HUDSON