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Simeon Mitropolitski is a Canadian analyst, of Bulgarian origin, and a former syndicated columnist with the Bulgarian News Agency (BTA). He is the author of several hundred articles dealing with hot political and economic topics, both national and international.
He was part of the first group of Bulgarian intellectuals and students that began the opposition movement that finally put an end to the communist regime in this country in 1989, and in 1996-1997 participated in international observation teams during the elections in several Balkan countries - Romania, Albania and Bulgaria.
In 2002 Simeon and his family moved from Bulgaria to Canada where they live now in Montreal, province of Quebec. Simeon is a Master of Political Science from McGill University and a B.A. of Political Science and History.
Global Real Estate Project
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Tunisia: Good, bad and ... Internet
In Tunisia, for example, the family of President Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali controls national access to the Internet and he has built up very effective censorship, with the Web sites of all opposition publications and many news sites blocked. The regime also dissuades people from using Web-based e-mail, which is harder to monitor than standard e-mail such as Outlook. Since we gave another decade of power to the Tunisian political leadership in our last year report, this country has kept close to its bad record as one of the most pro-Western Arab secular tyrannies. In an almost ideal example of a country with split personality, it tries to project one image to the world, at least to the Western world, and at the same time deals mercilessly with its domestic opponents. The list of freedom-loving persons put in jail is growing. At the same time a close political relation with the West is applied in order to remove any possible critique against the regime. Tunisia is among the countries considered to be a French turf on the global playing table. Too many things in Tunisia cannot be properly explained without looking to France as a main international intervening factor. Secular modernization is at the core of political legitimacy of the ruling regime. Yet precisely this modernization is to life one unexpected tool in the hands of the opposition, the Internet. There is a good page in the Tunisian story and it's the gradual economic openness. In fact, since 2005 foreigners can more easily buy properties in the country. Up until then they had to apply for special permits. Now, the legal regime has changed from asking permission to buy to registration of the property transfer, which is by no means done automatically and fast, but it's at least a step forward in the right direction. As a country without oil and gas exports, Tunisia is heavily dependent on international tourism and on some specific industries' exports. This means it must be calm and predictable, otherwise nobody will go there. Millions of foreign tourists still go and their number is growing. On all these good points we should congratulate the regime. In reality, for those going to get a rest for one or two weeks, there is something much more important than the liberty of speech. This is sad but this is the reality. On the bad side we still have a tight government grip over society. Opponents are jailed and silenced. Independent foreign critics are filtered. The government put the country into the black list of 15 states, declared to be enemies of Internet. The Web looks exactly like in an Orwellian world. The government filters the main stream of information, distributes licenses and provides access to second level of censors that spy over their clients. Unable to stop the Internet, the Tunisian leadership tries to nationalize it. As far as the users are relatively few, this strategy may bring some fruits. But what will happen when all population decides to get connected? What will happen if anyone decides to break the taboos? Can government put everyone in jail? So far we haven't seen any genuine democratization that has started using Internet as a main tool of popular mobilization. That's because the most recent wave of democratization in the late 1980s occurred before the Internet era. What I can predict, however, is that in the future the Internet will play some role in tearing down many secular tyrannies. Tunisian may be one of them.
Tunisia country profile: --------------------
See also the directory of companies providing real estate services in, and general real estate information of Tunisia.
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