Several thousand Tunisians have marched through central Tunis to protest against a bill that would grant amnesty to businessmen accused of corruption when autocrat Zine El-Abidine Ben Ali was in power – according to Reuters.
The march, which took place on Saturday, saw thousands carry flags and banners saying “No to Forgiveness” and “Enough Corruption”. Around 5,000 people, accompanied by opposition party leaders and activists, led the demonstration.
The Economic Reconciliation Bill has found strong critics who believe that it is a step back from the spirit of Tunisia’s 2011 revolution to oust Ben Ali but government officials say it is a way to get the businessmen to inject some of their ill-gotten cash back to the economy.
The draft law allows businessmen to reveal stolen funds and repay them. No exact figures exist for the amount of graft during the Ben Ali government, but based on past investigations, officials believe that some $3 billion could be returned initially under law.
Six years after the revolution that removed Ben Ali from power, Tunisia has been praised as a model of democratic transition but it is struggling with the corruption, economic malaise and youth frustrations that helped trigger the initial revolt.
For many critics the law – which has been stuck in parliament for two years since President Beji Caid Essebsi proposed it – is simply an amnesty for criminals and a way to rehabilitate Ben Ali allies back into Tunisian society, Reuters reports.
“We’re here to say to Essebsi and his cohorts that the law will fall in the street like in all democracies,” Popular Front opposition leader Ammar Amroussia told Reuters. “He wants to pass this corrupt law, but these protests show that we say no.”
Essebsi, who was a former Ben Ali official, sent the law to parliament in 2015 though the bill was delayed after criticism that it chiefly benefitted business elites who had previously been tied to the government.
The bill is currently being debated in committee and will then go to a plenary session.
Despite a consensus between secular and Islamist parties that helped hold Tunisian stable after the 2011 uprising, the bill has divided Tunisians between those who want to move on from the past and those who say they cannot tolerate corruption.
Even through its swift democratic progress, free elections and new constitution, Tunisia still faces social unrest among many young unemployed who feel their revolution against official abuses and corruption has not delivered economic opportunities.
“Today we are saying the defenders of the revolution are still here,” one protester told Reuters, wearing a T-Shirt with the slogan “No Forgiveness”.
“We can’t accept something that whitewashes corruption like this.”
