Dissident Spotlight: Amina Mansour
In 2011, Amina Mansour was a central figure in the Tunisian Revolution. Today she faces a lawsuit for a Facebook post criticizing Tunisia's prime minister.
The 2011 Tunisian Revolution set off a larger movement throughout North Africa and the Middle East.
Mohamed Bouazizi lit himself on fire in December 2010 to protest his government’s arbitrary seizing of the goods he planned to sell. Millions of other people saw themselves in his ordinary struggle to feed himself and send his family to school. They resented the limitations their dictators put on their abilities to do the difficult work of living.
Tunisia’s president was overthrown in January 2011, a week and a half after Bouazizi died from his wounds. Then Tunisia went through a transition from a dictatorship to a democratic republic.
Amina Mansour was an important commentator during Tunisia’s democratic transition. Since the Tunisian Revolution, she has continued speaking out about corrupt leaders, as is her duty and right as a democratic citizen.
However, Tunisia’s government did not take long to backslide into authoritarianism.
Two Free Speech Cases
Human Rights Watch reported that in August 2018, Mansour wrote a Facebook post that accused Prime Minister Youssef Chahed of “promoting corrupt customs officials.” Mansour was interrogated and charged under two separate communications laws. Each charge carried one month in prison.
In 2021, Mansour wrote another post on Facebook criticizing Tunisia’s president. This led to another arrest and a charge under a different communications law. Mansour appealed her six-month prison sentence, but a court ruled she’d have to serve it in May 2022.
Today, she remains active on Facebook. A day before this post was written, she made a post criticizing a “ridiculous bill” Tunisia’s parliament passed reducing the court’s power in electoral oversight powers shortly before Tunisia’s presidential election.
Tunisia’s current president, Kais Saied, was elected in 2017 with 72% of the vote. While in office, he suspended parliament and forced the country to adopt a new constitution that gave him new executive powers. He’s viewed as a return to 2011’s dictatorship but with the pain of hopes for free expression dashed instead.
A Republic If You Can Keep It
When Elizabeth Willing Powel asked Benjamin Franklin whether the United States was a republic or monarchy, Franklin is said to have responded, “A republic, if you can keep it.” A journal entry from another member of the Constitutional Convention suggests that Powel posed this question after Franklin signed the U.S. Constitution.
It’s a hard lesson for emerging democracies. Few leaders are willing to submit themselves to courts or the people. Even if democratic leaders emerge after an era of authoritarianism, another dictator can break the fragile institutions that keep countries’ leaders in check.
Tunisia approved a new constitution in 2014 to reflect desired changes from the 2011 democratic revolution. President Saied’s 2022 referendum marked about eight years in the lifespan of a foundational piece of the young democracy.
Mansour has survived harassment from multiple prime ministers and presidents. Although the cases against her have chilled other bloggers, journalists, and citizens, her refusal to silence herself shows how powerful the forces of ordinary people are against authoritarian leaders who, so far, have come and gone.
