Putting Living together to the test – La Presse de Tunisie

The first two days of Ramadan saw strict and zealous, sometimes forceful, official action with public restaurants, La Presse reports. The police visited neighbourhoods in the northern suburbs of the capital and elsewhere in some cities and according to witnesses, they closed eating establishments that have chosen to open during daytime during the holy month.

The authorities claim that this is just a simple renewal of the provisions applied for many years. Civil society and part of the population instead see a threat to individual liberty and a desire to impose by force a compliance of  increasingly strict religious standards, the paper says.
 
It remarks that new rules seem to be being enforced limiting  the personal choices of citizens in a country that  has advocated freedom of belief since independence and which bills itself as a  tourist location?
 
The Interior Ministry insisted that the instructions given on restaurants opening during Ramadan were the same as in previous years. Regarding the tourist areas and commercial establishments open for tourists they can open during day time on condition that they do not serve on the terraces, but only inside. These are the same regulations as were in force during President Habib Bourgiba’s time.
 
However La Presse says that investigating one area they found that restaurants and café’s were almost all closed out of personal choice of the proprietors. Except that some retailers who  had opened consistently for every Ramadan were this time closed as well. Another curious fact, officials or staff of some cafes and tea rooms which had the curtains half lowered, showed an obvious discomfort, refused to serve and even answer questions from journalists. Only two agreed to talk: a  manager of a tea room and an owner of a fast food restaurant.
 
One said that the police used intimidation forcing him to close. He said that he had foreign customers and always served them inside as had been done previously.
 
The other an owner of an international franchise had also been ordered to close by the police. His customers included school children and diabetics. He followed the rules but was asked to close. He then received  a visit from Salafists who asked him to close to encourage people to fast. La Presse  met two Italians suffering in the heat, they wanted water. "I'm Italian, said one of them and I have come to Tunis to work, everything is closed, it's incredible!"
 
La Presse says this raises real concerns. The first relates to the capacity of the Tunisians to live together with their differences. The second is the obvious difficulty of authorities in enforcing civil liberties which they had
committed to do at the beginning of the transitional mandate.

Another major concern its says, stems from the insidious onset of religious enforcement and a disconcerting gap between official rhetoric and its implementation. Tunisia has always been a tolerant  secular society but this sadly seems to be changing.