ACPRA Applauds the Tunisian Popular Revolution,

Condoms Offering Sanctuary to the Deposed Tunisian Tyrant

Zine Elabidine Bin Ali

Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

Friday, January 21, 2010.

        The Saudi Civil and Political Rights Association (ACPRA) salutes the revolution of freedom and dignity in the Republic of Tunisia, and congratulates all Tunisians for the victory and success of their revolution.  People of Tunisia are now liberated of the clutches of absolute despotism they had endured for the past twenty three years, and they are now free of oppression, injustice, and corruption that destroyed human dignity. Moreover, ACPRA asks God’s mercy to fallen heroes, especially Mohammed Bouazizi, who sacrificed their lives so millions of Tunisians could breathe breezes of freedom.

The victory of the Tunisian people has come as a fruit of tireless efforts and great sacrifices, in which all shades of Tunisian opposition and intellectuals took part. The popular revolution of Tunisia gives hope to oppressed Arabs in order to make sacrifices to win their freedom and to regain their usurped rights.

The Tunisian popular revolution has embarrassed other authoritarian Arab regimes; especially regimes that deal with their people with an iron fist, whose leaders and ministers of repression (interior) draw their lessons in how to enslave their people from the infamous former Tunisia’s notorious dictator Zine Elabidine Bin Ali. But those totalitarian Arab regimes have been conspiring not only against their people, but they also thwart all factors that may promote freedom in Arab and Islamic nations.  Oppressive Arab regimes will continue to try hard to baffle this popular revolution in order not to cross the Tunisian border and threaten Arab tyrants’ thrones; they are mortified that the popular Tunisia revolution may become a model to be copied by oppressed Arab masses who continue to swallow various types of humiliations under Arab despots.

Those who follow the developments of events during the past few days find that there is a conspiracy by the majority of Arab regimes to distort the victory of the Tunisian revolution. While impartial world media praised the popular Tunisian revolution, Arab media launched an attack imbuing it as “popular violence” and describing it as “chaotic sabotage”. This is merely a desperate attempt to tinge the deposed Bin Ali’s regime as the source of security and safety not only for the Tunisians but also to all the people throughout the Arab Middle East. Once again, it’s a cheap scare tactic to convince Arab masses to tolerate injustice and to submit to oppression.

With great regret, our country, Saudi Arabia, publicly announced the hosting of the Tunisian butcher, his family, and the rest of his ruthless bandits who abused Tunisians for more than two decades; killing incents, raping women, imprisoning and torturing people in secret prisons, and unlawfully embezzling public funds. When Tunisians finally succeeded in liberating themselves, and they were able to humiliate their long-time dictator by expelling him; and after his traditional allies, who praised him a few days prior to his precipitous collapse, refused to host him. The Saudi regime welcomed him and his retinues despite his disgraceful and shameful actions against Tunisians. What a message are we sending to the free people of Tunisia who have just come out from the dungeons of torture at the hands of Bin Ali’s cruel operatives? What can we say to the Tunisian opposition leaders who have returned from exile immediately after their ousted president fled the country?

 ACPRA calls upon the Saudi leadership to reconsider their wrong decision of welcoming the fugitive Tunisia president and his entourage. Furthermore ACPRA asks the Saudi government not to provide a safe haven for dictators and human rights abusers. Political asylum shouldn’t be granted to the fallen Tunisian dictator; instead he should be handed over to the new Tunisian government to stand trial in order to pay retribution to the crimes and serious violations committed under his regime.

 While ACPRA calls for expelling Zine Elabidine Bin Ali from the land of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, it declares its full solidarity with the free Tunisian people. Moreover, ACPRA calls upon all Tunisian Jurists and activists to document all the crimes and violations committed by the deposed president in order to continue his pursuit and prosecution until he appear before the International Criminal Court.

The hosting of the deposed Tunisian president flagrantly contradicts the declared “non- interference” Saudi policy in the affairs of other states, unless the stated policy is no more than a non-applicable slogan violated by the Saudi government’s declared acts and secret movements. In this context, the blatant interference in the Yemeni revolution in the early 1960s, granting of political asylum to the deposed Imam of Yemen and his family, offering a sanctuary to the butcher of Uganda (Idi Amin) and his family in the early 1970s, and using our country as a safe haven to symbols of corruption and tyranny whenever angry crowd shake their thrones are just examples for these contradictions.

Has our country become too cheap to be a trash bin that contains wastes, contaminated, and burned papers? If there was no regard for endogenous Saudis whose interests are neglected, their infrastructure deteriorated, who have been deprived of a decent life, and who were even left to sink in the sewage without implementing political reform that may combat political corruption.  However, can the Saudi government ignore the inflamed feelings of the Tunisians against those who destroyed their country and plunder their fortunes?

Via leaks and evidence, ACPRA believes that the one who welcomed the Tunisian fugitive president in our country are the repressive robber princes, who view the ousted Tunisian tyrant as their teacher in suppressing their people. Their bilateral cooperation is as clear as the sun at midday, Tunisia hosts the Arab Interior Ministers Council, and Zine Elabidine Bin Ali and his regime is a premier provider of torture experts to not only the Saudi Ministry of Interior, but also to all other repressive regimes throughout the Arab world. These repressive Arab regimes see the defunct Tunisian regime as a guiding light in suppressing their people and crushing any possible factors that may revive the nation. It is not coincident to see this intimate relationship that made Zine Elabidine Bin Ali’s regime a favored destination frequented by interrogators to gain latest skills in tortures reached by Bin Ali’s experts. Moreover, Bin Ali’s Tunisia also became a favored destination to wildlife exterminators who are bound together with the former Tunisian tyrant in an intimate relationship, tantamount to student-teacher relationships.

 ACPRA reiterates its demand to expel the criminal Zine Elabidine Bin Ali, apologize to the Saudi people for this insult, and apologize to the people of Tunisia for hosting their executioner. It’s shameful to grant facilities for the deposed Tunisian dictator to communicate with his operatives back in tyranny-free Tunisia; as the proverb goes: “coming back to doing the good is better than persisting in doing the evil.” ACPRA urges Saudi human rights activists and community leaders to exert utmost peaceful pressure on their government to undo this shame from our country so the sacked Tunisian tyrant won’t by an ally to our own tyrants. Unless Saudi intellectuals pressure their government, the former Tunisian dictator will be advising in how our people can be suppressed, similar to the infamous Egyptian minster of the interior Zaki Badr who worked as an adviser to the Saudi minister of interior before the former death.

 The peaceful Tunisian revolution has caused a strong earthquake that shook the world, because it happened in the least likely place. Arab Middle East had always been excluded from the possibility of any popular uprisings. The Tunisian events have brought swift, decisive, and unexpected reactions; the popular revolution was welcomed by many Western capitals who declared their respect to the will of the Tunisians. This is a clear indicator of the relationship of Western democracies with Arab autocracies, which reached an impasse, but that relationship has become too costly for the Western countries that have suffered the wrath of the Arab masses due its close relations with Arab totalitarian regimes. The current Arab regimes contradict Western democratic values such as justice, equality, people’s political participation, and the rule of law.

Most importantly, however, is the general consensus among West countries that democracy is the solution to not only Arab countries internal problems, but democracy will also be a solution to international problems such as violence and terrorism, which came as a result of repression by Western countries’ despot Arab allies, which has long bragged about their strategic relations with Western countries in general, and the United States of America in particular. Arab dictators are afraid of the success of the peaceful movements because they want to continue to benefit from Western countries’ terrorism and extremism panic; although they all realize that democracy is the solution for violence and terrorism.

The future promises popular governance, end of tyranny, demise of oppression, and no more human rights violations in Arab countries, which can resolve the problems of extremism, violence, and terrorism. Democracy could ensure a breakthrough in the congested horizon, and provide radical solutions to economic problems that caused the deterioration in the living standards in Arab countries despite huge economic potentials. The question is whether corrupt Arab regimes are aware of the seriousness of this current stage which based on people-to-people relations instead of government-to-government? Could authoritarian Arab regimes envisage Western democracies abandon their support and protection because they have become a heavy burden? A happy fellow will learn his lessons from others’ destinies before facing Zine Elabidine Bin Ali’s painful Fate.

It is time for authoritarian Arab regimes to come to terms with their own people, grant them their legitimate rights, stop serious human rights violations, and offer solutions to the chronic problems before it is too late. Otherwise, flood of angry protesters will inundate streets of Arab capitals demanding their usurped rights; and no aggressor, thief, nor a violator of people’s rights will escape the grip of that fateful day.

Those who believe that the people will remain silent and passive are delusional because people throughout Arab countries had watched the Tunisian event and followed the course of events moment by moment. They saw liberated Tunisians breathe freedom and build their new democracy which reveal flawed corrupt Arab regimes which are based on the suppression of their people and the theft of public funds. Hence, Arab masses will mimic the Tunisian experience.

It was the Tunisians’ civil society experience that made their popular revolution purely peaceful. This scenario, however, isn’t guaranteed in other countries that prevent all means of peaceful expression, these kind of regimes tend to forget the former U.S. President, John F. Kennedy, warning in his famous speech at the White House lawn in Washington, which is directed to the Shah of Iran in 1962, where he said: “Those who make peaceful changes impossible, will make violent revolutionary changes inevitable.”

Is the current of oppression, injustice, repression, and looting aware of this statement and the inevitable tragic end, which is as deterministic as a mathematical equation?

In conclusion, ACPRA wishes Tunisians the best success and guidance in establishing their new, free, and democratic state.

The Saudi Civil and Political Rights Association

                        (ACPRA)