I'm Melina Bellini and I'm blogger from
Tunisia first of all I want to thank the
organizers of the Oslo Freedom Forum for
giving me the opportunity to speak in
front of such a wonderful audience I did
acade my participation in the forum to
Tunisian martyrs to Tunisian people
because if it wasn't for their sacrifice
I wouldn't have been able to be among
you in fact the last time I tried to
travel before January 14th the police
didn't let me leave the country I also
dedicate this presentation to all the
Arab people who are fighting for their
freedom and to all the people who
believe in freedom democracy and human
rights when I was invited to take part
in this event I planned to talk about
the role of social media and the Arab
revolutions a role that I personally
think was exaggerated
I guess that all of you think that the
social media played the most important
role in the Arab revolutions the world
was and is following Arab citizens
taking to the streets and demonstrated
against their regimes thanks to blogs
Twitter feeds and Facebook videos and
photos which are disseminated across the
web despite the limited internet access
of in the majority of these countries
but social media alone wouldn't have
facilitated the Arab revolution it was
combined with a myriad of other factors
as well as different methods of digital
and traditional media technology cup
advances such as cell phones cameras
Facebook and Twitter in combination with
more traditional media outlets like Al
Jazeera and France event get created the
circumstances for such an effective
information dissemination in both
Tunisia and Egypt people succeeded in
getting rid of their dictators
citizens in Libya Bahrain Syria and
Yemen are still fighting for dignity and
freedom the world is already talking
about the spring of the Arab world
recently I've been traveling frequently
I had the opportunity to meet many
people and discuss with them I
understood that their idea about what's
going on and the Arab world is mistaken
they think that we had already succeeded
our revolutions that everything is fine
for us but this is not true I'll talk
about the latest developments in my
country to explain this on may the 4th a
video showing the former Minister of
Interior and Tunisia circulated on
Facebook he was talking about the
current situation in Tunisia and he was
talking about his dismissal rather than
resignation he was talking about about
conspiracy and the misdeeds of the
transitional government whether what he
said was true or not people decided to
take to the streets again and to
demonstrate against the government and
guess what again the government used
violence they used the old methods used
by the old regime tear gas and live
ammunitions were there the police were
beating people using transitions and
some people were killed
normally the police officers duty is to
protect citizens this is not the case in
Tunisia and I'm sorry I'm really sorry
to talk about this okay two days ago a
curfew was announced at again now I
think that the world is not caring
anymore about what is going on in
Tunisia because there are many events
happening simultaneously and I'm sizing
this opportunity to tell you that things
didn't really change in my country
freedom and freedom of speech are just
missed
the situation is very bad but despite
this dark part of things this dark side
of things I'm still especially faithful
in the Tunisian news because they showed
their dedication to freedom to democracy
I know that they are going to continue
the fight one of our slogans in Tunisia
is an automat now if you will be back we
will back be back - I hope I think that
the situation is the same and in other
parts of the Arab world and hopefully we
will talk about the Arab Spring pretty
soon thank you for your attention