The North African country has locked up musicians deemed to be critical of the state. Now one jailed rapper’s entourage is fighting against time to get his message out and rally the country’s floundering democracy movement.
Posted by James McAuley
"Janine di Giovanni is a war reporter who has covered nearly every major violent conflict since the late nineteen-eighties. But in her most recent book, “Ghosts by Daylight,” she focusses her reporting skills on a different sort of struggle: that of trying to live a normal life as a wife and mother in light of the horrors she’s witnessed. As her marriage, to another war reporter, crumbles (the two are separated), di Giovanni reflects on learning to speak the languages of war, of destruction, and, finally, of love..."
"For Tunisian artist Nadia Jelassi, the trouble started in June when her sculptures, along with those of other artists, went on display at a Tunis gallery. Jelassi's sculptures featured female mannequins in conservative Islamic dress that included robes, with their hair covered. The work was surrounded by a bed of smooth stones. Jelassi says everything was fine until the last day of the exhibit, when a man taking photos asked that some of the artwork be taken down.
"Of course we refused," she says. "But before long he came back with a group of bearded men. They scrawled 'Death to Blasphemous Artists' on the gallery walls, and later that night broke into the building and destroyed many of the pieces."