- silence

- And according to the Tunisian opposition, one of the examples of President Ben Ali’s authoritative power

- is the fact that important pieces of information were not mentioned.

- It could have been the case of demonstrations organized in a mine basin in the center of the country for the past 3 month.

- Wasn’t it for an opposition channel, no one would talk about it.

- The reporting by Régis Nusbaum and Laurent Fabiou.

- Here is the only opposition channel, broadcast every night at 8 pm by satellite from Italy.

- An hour of broadcasting that invariably starts with those scenes of intifada shot in Tunisia.

- Everything started last January with a commonplace story of favoritism in hiring,

- organized by a national phosphate company,

- in the mine basin of Gafsa, 450 kilometers away from Tunis.

- A social conflict that turned into a movement of protest after the strong-armed intervention of security forces.

- Mainly in the town of Redeyef

- that became the scene of daily demonstrations against the Tunisian government.

- Everything that’s happening is the result of long years of repression, humiliation, impoverishment.

- They get riches on people’s back.

- Comments that cost Adnan Hajji to be arrested several times and suspended by his union.

- But this movement would have stayed mainly unknown in Tunisia

- if it hadn’t been relayed by the opposition TV Al Hiwar, literaly “dialogue”.

- This video was shot between past March 20th and April 7th in particularly difficult conditions.

- The main difficulties are first that legally it is forbidden to shot on the street, nowhere else,

- even into public meetings that are inside,

- it is forbidden and each time that one of our fellow members is found shooting,

- he is beaten up and his video camera is confiscated.

- Do you know that over the past 12 months, we have counted up to eleven physical attacks and 8 confiscated cameras?

- It’s now been over 3 months that Gafsa Basin is up in a roar

- but here in Tunis, not even a word about those events on TV and the state radio

- nor in the Tunisian papers that are authorized for publication.