Arrested Pirate Party Member Becomes Tunisian Minister

January 19, 2011 by admin

This just came across the Anon Twitter feed while I was preparing this diary. No time to check. Here's the story:

Arrested Pirate Party Member Becomes Tunisian State Secretary

After weeks of public protests on- and offline the Tunisian president Zine El Abidine Ben Ali resigned and escaped the country last Friday. Today, the head of the transitional government, Prime Minister Mohammed Ghannouchi, announced his new cabinet members which include a familiar name. Slim Amamou, the Pirate Party member and freedom of speech activist who was arrested just a few days ago, is now the (deputy minister) State Secretary of Youth and Sports.

Old title:
Tunisia: will there be a domino effect?

France 24 writes:

In the wake of the ousting of Tunisia’s president, Ben Ali, many online commentators from the Arab world are wondering if the revolution will spread to neighboring countries and how the next government, that will bear the brunt of the popular unrest, will be formed. These questions have been largely relayed on the web.

For Egyptian blogger and journalist Mona Eltahawy, some of Tunisia’s neighboring regimes should without a doubt expect the revolution to spread. She mentions notably Libya, Yemen and also Algeria, states ruled, in her opinion, by aging dictators, who are increasingly far removed from their people’s everyday concerns. She says this is a similar situation to that which precipitated the fall of Ben Ali, and it could quite easily turn against the leaders of these countries.

American analyst Juan Cole, who is an expert on this region, hopes the Tunisian revolution will actually trigger the beginning of something bigger. For him, one thing is certain: whatever happens, recent events in Tunisia will have more repercussions on the region than 2009’s Green revolution in Iran.

Numerous web users meanwhile, like these Syrians are hoping a wave of reform will soon sweep through the region and the Tunisian revolution will spark a domino effect in their country. And they are convinced that the next regime to fall to popular pressure will be that of Bashar al-Assad, the President of Syria.

Finally, online activist group Anonymous, which was extremely involved in Tunisia’s popular uprising, is encouraging people to continue the movement. They have also announced they will soon be launching “operation freedom” to help people from affected regions combat infringement on freedom of expression. They are targeting Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Algeria and also Syria.

On January 6th, Forbes' Parmy Olson tells more about the Anonymous involvement in the Tunisian Revolution:

In the last few days Anonymous has set its sights on Tunisia for censoring the web sites of dissident bloggers and new sources, following widespread domestic protests in December.

A representative of AnonOps (the elite arm of Anonmyous that spearheaded recent attacks) who calls himself Topiary, says the Tunisian government has been using a JavaScript embed to phish Tunisian citizens’ usernames and passwords to spy on them. (More on how Tunisia is interfering in its citizen’s Facebook accounts here.)

“We wrote a counter-script that strips the government’s script and we’re actively distributing it to the Tunisian web users,” he says.

There have been around 2,000 downloads of the counter script (which stops the state’s phishing script from working) in the last 40 hours. The group also defaced government Web sites including this one, which is currently down due to be subject to a DDoS attack. “We aren’t letting them back up just yet,” says Topiary.
...
The group hasn’t decided which governments to attack next after Tunisia. It’ll factor in corruption as well as urgency having, for instance, coincided the attacks on Tunisia with physical domestic protests.

New Anonymous Video -

Transcript:

Ladies and gentlemen. Anonymous users of the internet. For better or for worse, we are at war. There are no bystanders. There are no safe havens. As long as draconian regimes and oppressive authorities exist, the freedom of information, and in turn, your freedom to do as you wish on the internet, is threatened. However, this is a war that Anonymous is winning.
Copyright holders tried to take down peer-to-peer file sharing sites. They failed and continue to fail. Self-important officials in the United States government attempted to silence Wikileaks. They failed on a colossal scale worthy of ridicule for many years to come. And, most recently, the dictatorship of Tunisia made the fatal mistake of denying the political and internet freedoms of the Tunisian people. They not only failed, they collapsed. The Tunisian government is in shambles. Their tyrant of over two decades has fled the country.
Behind all of these recent outstanding events lurked Anonymous, lending a helping hand when possible, causing problems where it mattered the most, and amassing lulz the entire time. Corporations and states continue to find themselves incapable of stemming the coming tide of social change brought about by the internet. Each and everyone of you are shaking the system to its core. Leaders are nervous and scared.
Anonymous is fighting a war. Whether you're doing it for the good of mankind, doing it for the lulz, or a healthy balance of both, you're bringing about change only dreamed of in fiction. Continue to fight for the freedom of information and you will continue to win the game. The consequences will never be the same. Yes, Anonymous. We are fighting a war. And we are winning. Expect us.

- A single, humble Anon

Also Anonymous has released this video and barrettbrown has started a diary about it.

Here is a recap of my other DKos dairies on this subject:
Is Libya Next? Anonymous Debates New Operation
Tunis: This Photo was Taken 66 Minutes Ago
The WikiLeaks Revolution: Anonymous Strikes Tunisia
EMERGENCY: DKos Must Act Now to Protect Tunisian Bloggers!
Free Software & Internet Show Communism is Possible
BREAKING - Digital Sit-Ins: The Internet Strikes Back!
Cyber War Report: New Front Opens Against Internet Coup d'état
Operation PayBack: 1st Cyber War Begins over WikiLeaks
The Internet Takeover: Why Google is Next
BREAKING: Goodbye Internet Freedom as Wikileaks is Taken Down
BREAKING NEWS: Obama Admin Takes Control of Internet Domains!
Things Even Keith Olbermann Won't Cover - UPDATE: VICTORY!!!
Stop Internet Blacklist Bill Now!
Sweet Victory on Internet Censorship: Senate Backs Off!
Internet Engineers tell the Senate to Back Off!
Why is Net Neutrality advocate Free Press MIA?
Obama's Internet Coup d'état
Julian Assange on Threat to Internet Freedom