The Tunisian government is deadly afraid of Civil Society.
There is no other explanation for what is going on here in Tunis. And since I assume that most of you have never had first-hand experience of this kind, let me describe my first 14hrs in Tunis.
Arriving at 23:30, having passed immigration and security on the way OUT of the airport, there was no way to register last night. So I took one of the buses supplied by the local organisation. That bus brought us to the "bus hub", where we were redistributed on buses to the different hotel locations. This took a while and obviously speed was not a concern of the organisers. When we finally left the bus hub, it was around 1:00. Yes, we had spent 45 minutes sitting on the bus waiting for it to finally get going.
On the trip to Hammamet we saw something remarkable: every one or two hundred meters, there was a guy in a suit standing by the highway. Possible explanations: a) the government is really worried the highway may get stolen, b) standing in a suit on a lonely stretch of highway at night is a very popular past-time in Tunisia, c) they feared we would kidnap the bus and fly it to Latin America, d) they were really afraid of the Civil Society bunch in the bus.
What is additionally interesting about this is that each bus has a driver and an additional "tour guide" kind of guy, although they never speak to the people on the bus. Given that they usually seem to have no idea where they are and stories tell of buses getting lost for hours, people here figure they are secret service agents.
The other stories you hear are telling similar tales: Last night, the Heinrch Böll Foundation for instance held an event with 30 participants, for which the Tunisian government had 50 security goons stop people from entering once the event had begun. To give you an idea: Not even the German ambassador could make it into the side event, he likewise got turned down by Tunisian secret service goons.
But I digress: Owed to the extreme efficiency of the bus distribution system, I ended up in my hotel around 2:30, too tired to do anything but get some sleep.
This morning, the journey continued as it had begun: by bus. Arriving at the bus hub, I had to make my way to the registration place (by bus), wait in a long line for the security check and another long line to get my great badge.
And unlike Geneva, people here are now very open about the badges containing RFID chips. Provided they have a similar sensor outfit to what we saw in Geneva, they should now know who is in which room at which time with whom. Sweet.
Back to the KRAM conference center (by bus) and just through one more security check, I finally arrived at the WSIS. By then it was 13:00. Getting an idea of the place, what is going on, saying hello to some people and giving my first small interview then completed the experience.
While saying hello to other people from Civil Society, I also heard that the Tunisian government is now about to stop side-events outside the KRAM Palexpo, which is conveniently isolated from the Tunisian people. In protest, several Civil Society side-events inside KRAM have been canceled — and some governments are considering to protest officially.
So business as usual at the WSIS…
