EXCLUSIVE: Sophiane Ben Farhat, “Ennahdha and the murderous government responsible for Covid 19 deaths in Tunisia”
-
Alaina
- . August 1, 2021
- . Update: August 2, 2021 12:36 am
The management of COVID-19 is one of the causes of the Tunisians’ anger against Ennhadha and the Government of Hicham Mechichi, deposed by President Kais Saïed after the uprisings of July 25. In previous weeks, Tunis recorded the highest number of infections by the number of inhabitants among Arab countries and North Africa, earning second place globally for the number of deaths, about 20,000 out of 12 million inhabitants since the beginning of the pandemic. “The whole world is experiencing an unclear situation, especially from the point of view of Covid-19. Last year, in 2020, Tunisia recorded just over 167 deaths. In June and July, we had zero deaths because the management of Covid was very serious at the beginning. But then, in ten months, we have recorded over 20,000 official deaths from the coronavirus. Still, officiously perhaps there have been 400,000 deaths due to the catastrophic management of the emergency.” Tunisian journalist and intellectual Sophiane Ben Farhat told The Arab Posts exclusively, adding: “First of all, we have seen corruption affairs concerning face masks involving members of the Government supported by the Ennhadha’s party. The health minister donated the market to a deputy, saying he did not know he was a member of Parliament. The latter then said he did not know that a deputy could not do business with the State. Then, there was the scandal of the lack of purchase of vaccines”.
But there is more, according to Ben Farhat. The Tunisian journalist explains that “Parliament has been discussing for days the dossier of compensation, which Ennhadha was demanding for what they did in the past during the revolution, while the Tunisians were dying. During July 2021 only, we had more than 4,000 deaths. The Tunisians got very angry because they saw that its representatives had become a government of assassins. So, the Tunisians died, and nobody did anything. That is why demonstrations in the square led President Kais Saïed to freeze Parliament and dissolve the government”.
In the days following the decisions of President Saïed, who also entrusted the vaccination campaign and emergency management to the army, several countries, such as Italy, France, Malta, and the United States, delivered millions of doses of the vaccine and liters of oxygen to the Tunisian people. “After all of this, we have seen Ennhadha executives, such as Radwan Masmoudi, say ‘it’s a coup, don’t donate the vaccines to Tunisia’ after the international community and the European Union started helping us with vaccines and medical oxygen. On July 31, 2021, Americans sent 1 million liters of oxygen and 1 million vaccine doses. That will allow us to administer 100,000 vaccines a day and, in a month or a half month, 6 million Tunisians will be vaccinated. It will allow us to stop the spread of the virus”. Sophiane Ben Farhat said before speaking about the worst face of the local Muslim Brotherhood’s wing.
“I wonder how is it possible that a group that claims to love and defend its country asks foreign Nations, in the face of the death of their people, not to donate the vaccine to Tunisia? Even during a conflict, there is the right of war. Legal and humane treatment must also be reserved for prisoners”. The intellectual stresses, explaining what is happening in the North African country.
“At this point – he goes on – the Tunisians have understood that they have inevitably been victims of the incompetence of the Government and the underworld. What was the fuse that sparked the anger? The declaration of July 10, 2021, by the leaders of Ennhadha, the Council of the Shura, or the small Parliament of Ennhadha, asked the Government to donate 3 billion dinars between now and July 25, or we will take the streets. Here the Tunisians have decided that Ennhadha will no longer exist. Tunisians have lost their children. I have heard on the radio the stories of those who lost mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers. Every day, we hear the story of decimated families, and others ask for compensation. And then why? Because they committed acts of terrorism during the Bourguiba and Ben Ali period. During the revolution of 2011, they freed the people who killed Tunisians in Soliman before 2011, and then we found them in Syria, in Iraq, in Algeria, in the mountains of Tunisia. That is why Tunisians are angry. We must understand the anger of a people who, at the beginning of the pandemic, was an example of the fight against COVID-19. Today we are the first country by the number of deaths in Africa, in the Mediterranean basin, and at some point, we have even surpassed Asia. Suppose Tunisia, with a small government, does not manage all this. In that case, if Ghannouchi has not yet understood that he has his direct responsibility, that a murderous government has done all this, it means that he is someone who has nothing to do with politics. And that’s why history has begun, and their end will be definitive and radical.”
