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An inspiring gesture
On my arrival in Montreal, I had dinner with the chairman
of the Quebec Bishop's Conference. He told me of an event close
to his heart which had just happened.
The Cross of the World Youth Days had just arrived in his
diocese. Numerous events had been planned in different locations. |
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It was the bishop's wish that the Cross be brought to the
Juvenile Delinquents Home. Which was done. A few tables were
put together and the Cross was installed there. The young offenders
rushed to the Cross touching it and letting their hands linger
for several moments as if they could draw force and life from
it. Did this gesture mean that they wanted to be recognized,
loved and respected? And live just like any other teenager in
our community? At any rate, a few days later, about ten of the
young delinquents from this Home asked the bishop to be confirmed.
Like a good shepherd, the bishop agreed without any objection
and in so doing was demonstrating how young delinquents are precious
in the heart of God.
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I found this evangelical event very touching and narrated
it to a gathering of five thousand people the next day. Loud
applause broke out in the assistance. |
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- Tunisia: only the dead
have the right to listen to the opposition
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- A delegation from Marseille and Paris went to Tunis to
show solidarity to several conscience objectors in prison, especially
Hamma Hammami, an emblematic figurehead of the resistance who,
with his wife, a famous lawyer, came to greet us at the airport.
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I have much admiration for Hamma Hammami who leads a courageous
fight since 1972.
Thirty years of persecutions! He knows almost all the prisons
of Tunisia, notably the sinister prison of Nadhor. How can this
man survive all the tortures he was inflicted? |
We were followed and under police surveillance everywhere we
went. In front of the Tunis prison we were dispersed with no
consideration. France 3 and Arte television crews tried to film
the event and their equipment was seized by force. As for a BBC
television crew, the crew was detained for one hour and a half.
A press conference planned in a private residence was also banned.
The only place left for the opposition on these sad days: a cemetary
lost in the country at 120 km from Tunis, in the peacefulness
of corn fields and olive trees, in Gaafour. As it has been a
custom every year, left-wing activists, trade unionists and human
rights defenders gathered on this location around Nabil Barakati's
humble grave, who died 15 years ago after being tortured by Bourguiba's
police. Nabil was 27 years old. In all Tunisia he is still looked
at as a great martyr of the resistance.
There, and only there, were we able to talk freely: surrounded
by police cars scattered in the plains, this cemetary seemed
a weird location for a gathering in the middle of the fields.
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Only the dead, the flowers and the birds had the right to
listen to the speeches of the activists.Were the Tunisians not
worthy of hearing the speeches? |
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But they are under such heavy suveillance! Repression hits everybody.
Those who praise Ben Ali's regime are those who are afraid or
who have interests.
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We formed a large family around Nabil's grave. I was asked
to speak. I was pleased to talk of Nabil, this young teacher
who had his heart in the right place, who was afraid of no one
but who inspired much fright to the autorities! |
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- Because he was a free man. It is written in arab on his
grave: " May God have mercy on him".
Nabil deserves to be beatified!
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The City of Science and
Industry under occupation
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150 illegal refugees have occupied this prestigious place
to ask for their regularization. This occupation followed that
of the ex Colonial House where they had displayed a huge banner
with the inscription: " Colonized yesterday in the South,
now exploited in the North-For the regularization of all illegal
refugees".
These two illegal actions, during the electoral campaign, had
the purpose the reinsertion of social demands for the regularization
of illegal refugees caught in a double stranglehold between repression
and exploitation. |
A sit-in was held with speeches and songs in the wide lobby
of the City of Science and Industry. The director met with a
delegation. There was no police intervention and she accepted
to approach the Minister of Social Affairs. |
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Numerous times, we were asked to meet with the Minister
of the Interior, the only valid representative to discuss the
question of illegal refugees. Each time, we have refused under
the principle that the battle for the illegal refugees should
be dealt with respectfully and in accord with the fundamental
rigths-and not in a secure management manner with the objective
of branding them.
We have met with the Ministry of "Social Affairs and
Solidarity", which bears well its name! to ask that the
same rights be given to illegal workers as they are given to
other workers.
The Summit of the Fifteen in Seville wants to build an "insurmountable"
European fortress while the report of the UN Department of Populations
outlines demographic ageing in Europe, is detrimental to those
who will retire and will force inevitably to resort to immigrant
workers. |
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