:00:03. > :00:09.cars IIZ incident was unforgivable. Warren that to come at the top of
:00:09. > :00:13.that. -- President Karzai said the incident. We can bring you HARDtalk
:00:13. > :00:19.now. HARDtalk has come to Tunisia, the
:00:19. > :00:23.first Arab nation to be transformed by people power. To gauge the
:00:23. > :00:32.success of the transition to democracy, my guest is Said Ferjani,
:00:32. > :00:35.a key figure in Ennahda Movement, the moderate Islamist party that
:00:35. > :00:39.dominates the democratically elected government. Ennahda Party
:00:39. > :00:48.says it is committed to building a loss of democracy. But what does
:00:48. > :00:58.that mean? And will Tunisia beat a model for the Arab world to follow?
:00:58. > :01:18.
:01:18. > :01:23.Said Ferjani, welcome to HARDtalk. Thank you very much. It is now more
:01:23. > :01:27.than one years since President Ben Ali was overthrown. Is it fair to
:01:27. > :01:34.say that the euphoria of the revolution is well and truly worn
:01:34. > :01:40.off? I do not think so, but the expectations are high because
:01:40. > :01:47.people know what they expect if they get rid of President Ben Ali,
:01:47. > :01:51.it means that everything is going to come up here on one second.
:01:51. > :01:58.has not happened? The high expectation is the problem that we
:01:58. > :02:02.have to deal with more than it is the issues. At the end of the day
:02:02. > :02:09.you have problems, structural problems with the economy, with
:02:09. > :02:14.every area, which led to a revolution. Those problems have
:02:14. > :02:21.escalated to some extent in the aftermath of the revolution because
:02:21. > :02:26.at the end of the day we want to put back the economy on track. We
:02:26. > :02:31.want to have a solid, genuine democracy which is like any other
:02:31. > :02:33.democracy in the world. Ennahda Party, your party, the party which
:02:33. > :02:39.many people around the world characterised as the moderate
:02:39. > :02:46.Islamist party did extraordinarily well in the constitutional assembly
:02:46. > :02:50.elections. I think he won 41% of the vote, 90 out of 217 seats. And
:02:50. > :03:00.yet you refuse to characterise it as an it is almost party. Just
:03:00. > :03:00.
:03:00. > :03:05.explain to me why. -- Islamist party. Islamism is dogmatic,
:03:05. > :03:12.generating fear on others. People who are rigid and so on. We do not
:03:13. > :03:22.like that and that is not the reality. The reality is that,
:03:23. > :03:25.
:03:25. > :03:29.before I go to another point, Islamist here is any party that
:03:29. > :03:37.respects the references of Islam. Or they are proud of their identity.
:03:37. > :03:41.The word is liberalism -- the word Islamism is not really a very nice
:03:41. > :03:51.connotation in the minds of the people who are using it, whether in
:03:51. > :03:51.
:03:51. > :04:01.terms of journalists for in terms of some speeches of academics. It
:04:01. > :04:01.
:04:01. > :04:07.is and was one of moderate party. - - was well oriented party. Can that
:04:07. > :04:15.be a truly democratic party in the sense that you yourself snow from
:04:15. > :04:24.it many years living in exile in the West? Of course. You have
:04:24. > :04:31.Christian Democrats. Why did you accept democracy linked to
:04:31. > :04:36.Christianity, and not to Islam? However, having said that, for us,
:04:36. > :04:40.what we see is that we are reconciling two things within the
:04:40. > :04:48.minds and the culture and the approaches of academia and other
:04:48. > :04:54.people in the West did see them as strange to each other. In
:04:54. > :05:02.compatible to each other. We want to reconcile what is best in the
:05:02. > :05:08.West, which is democracy, as well as to be proud in the heritage of
:05:08. > :05:12.Islam and what is good in it. To reconcile the best of each. If it
:05:12. > :05:17.is a question of reconciling the best of beach, just explain exactly
:05:17. > :05:24.what your prime minister, your boss, meant when he told supporters at
:05:24. > :05:32.the end of last year, quote, we arrive in the 6th Caliphate, God
:05:32. > :05:37.willing. -- we are in there. Saying that suggest that he is his long-
:05:37. > :05:42.term ambition is to establish an Islamic Red Ed government which
:05:42. > :05:46.most people around the world, does not constitute Western-style
:05:46. > :05:56.democracy. That is understandable what you said but the reality is
:05:56. > :05:57.
:05:57. > :06:03.another one, which is, what he meant about the 6th Caliphate, he
:06:03. > :06:08.was talking to Islam must audience. He was trying to please the
:06:08. > :06:16.audience. Surely that is the point. You cannot face both ways at once.
:06:16. > :06:22.He is giving another understanding, another medium -- meaning about the
:06:22. > :06:29.Caliphate. You want a Caliphate? You have got one. To be clear, in a
:06:29. > :06:36.famous TV sermon back in 2005, an Egyptian moderate cleric, when he
:06:36. > :06:43.said, freedom comes before Islamic law, you absolutely agree with that,
:06:43. > :06:47.do you? I agree and I add, even the faith itself. To worship God you
:06:47. > :06:52.need pre- conditions which our knowledge and freedom. So knowledge
:06:52. > :06:55.and freedom should be first. -- which are. Would you therefore
:06:55. > :07:00.reject the proposal already put forward by one of your smaller
:07:00. > :07:04.partner parties, a more conservative party, who have
:07:04. > :07:11.specifically said that the new constitution, when formulated,
:07:11. > :07:16.should refer to Islamic Sharia as a principal source of legislation for
:07:16. > :07:21.this country? We understand very well that some people wish to have
:07:21. > :07:28.that. I disagree. You do not want to see a reference to Jarry as the
:07:28. > :07:34.source of legislation? We want really to see the identity of the
:07:34. > :07:40.people mentioned as Arab and who was one. These people want to
:07:40. > :07:46.express ideas. Nobody is asking them what is the DNA of these ideas.
:07:46. > :07:52.If they were caught they would be accepted. Wire are they referred to
:07:52. > :07:55.as this or that reference? In a way each it defines what real
:07:55. > :07:59.citizenship is. If there is a reference to Sharia law being the
:07:59. > :08:03.source of legislation, if there is a reference to the idea that the
:08:03. > :08:08.President must be eight Muslim citizen of the country, then you
:08:08. > :08:13.are creating different kinds of citizens, some who are in some ways
:08:13. > :08:19.first class, that is, was long, and some who are maybe not first class
:08:19. > :08:23.because they are not was one. It is still under discussion. If -- is a
:08:23. > :08:29.going to be a clear notion of secular citizenship? -- Moore's
:08:29. > :08:38.long. The word secular does not go very well here. We have to
:08:38. > :08:48.understand what is going on. President Assad is a killer. Hosni
:08:48. > :08:55.
:08:55. > :09:01.Mubarak is a secular. -- secular. We are more moderate than the
:09:01. > :09:08.French. We don't want to mention whether Islamic or would that
:09:08. > :09:13.Islamist or whether secular. We want deeds that are inclusive of
:09:13. > :09:17.everybody. There must be freedom of belief. There must be anything on
:09:17. > :09:25.the basis of citizenship. And that the citizen is Supreme and
:09:25. > :09:31.sovereign. I want Tunisia has to respect Sharia law, and respect
:09:31. > :09:39.your references, we're not in a position of weakness or volatility.
:09:39. > :09:47.You are sovereign, so you have to respect everybody. When you do that,
:09:47. > :09:52.this is one crucial point in terms of Sharia law itself. As you have
:09:52. > :09:58.said, at the end -- in the end, the test of all this comes in the
:09:58. > :10:02.application of law and policies, which is the right to freedom of
:10:02. > :10:07.expression, which your interim government, the new government, has
:10:07. > :10:13.been very keen rhetorically to defend, but which many Tunisians
:10:13. > :10:21.maybe of a more secular dent, believe is not truly being offended
:10:21. > :10:27.by your government. I am sorry that my government is more liberal than
:10:27. > :10:32.those people. I give you the evidence. We said we would not
:10:32. > :10:37.interfere in the closing of women. When we said that, we refused that
:10:37. > :10:42.any section of the society would impose its lifestyle upon another
:10:42. > :10:47.section of the society. You are free to cherish your lifestyle, but
:10:47. > :10:54.please do not interfere, or don't impose this one upon another one.
:10:54. > :11:01.In Tunisia, what have we got? We have got two fundamentalist secular
:11:01. > :11:07.us and we have fundamentalist Islam us. -- secularists. One of them
:11:07. > :11:12.want to impose the burka or whatever. Let me Interactive for a
:11:12. > :11:17.second. If you were talking about the extremely conservative, forces
:11:17. > :11:21.in your country, they're not just talking, they are acting. They took
:11:21. > :11:26.over the humanities department at one of your universities, demanding
:11:26. > :11:32.windier able to take examinations with the fault veil on. --
:11:32. > :11:38.demanding that women be able to. There is a lot of distortion with
:11:38. > :11:48.that story. There are students, female students who want to get
:11:48. > :11:50.
:11:50. > :11:55.their exams. There are about 60 girls out of 375,000 who chose to
:11:55. > :11:58.put on the burka. We don't encourage them but we have to
:11:58. > :12:03.respect them. We said we would not interfere in the choice of clothing
:12:03. > :12:09.of any women. My question is, I knew really prepared for a
:12:09. > :12:13.fundamental confrontation with the more conservative, deeply
:12:13. > :12:19.conservative forces in this country? Not long ago, the end of
:12:19. > :12:24.last year, we saw hundreds of Salafi supporters going into
:12:24. > :12:26.account and taking over government buildings, punishing people who
:12:27. > :12:36.used alcohol and many Tunisians believed your government did
:12:36. > :12:40.nothing to stop them, just as good by and watched. Frankly, we have
:12:40. > :12:45.some American journalists who came to us. We said, go there and check.
:12:45. > :12:49.None of these things happened. Never happened? All of these
:12:49. > :12:57.stories? Telling us that government buildings have been taken over,
:12:57. > :13:01.people being punished. This was nonsense? No. With great respect,
:13:02. > :13:10.we would not allow anybody from any party or any individual to impose
:13:10. > :13:14.the law or a section whether it is Sharia law or not. This is really
:13:14. > :13:22.challenging the sovereignty of the state. This is a state of matter.
:13:22. > :13:26.We cannot allow that to anybody. Even if somebody... It is not
:13:26. > :13:33.negotiable. The other thing, what is extremely important, some people
:13:33. > :13:41.want to push for ideological polarisation and they wish to see
:13:41. > :13:46.to get rid of 60 girls studying in the University of. While at the
:13:46. > :13:53.same time, we are protecting those girls, the choice of the girls to
:13:53. > :13:58.put the scarf, as long as they are peaceful. Then we are already
:13:59. > :14:03.committed to protect those girls who choose that. We want both sides
:14:03. > :14:08.to protect their lifestyles as long as we have chosen so and they are
:14:08. > :14:18.peaceful rather than to allow others to impose upon others their
:14:18. > :14:19.
:14:19. > :14:24.Tunisian politics in its moderate form supports women wearing both
:14:24. > :14:30.the scarf and bikinis? It is their business. Here is a more
:14:30. > :14:35.challenging questions. Why is it that the widely acclaimed film
:14:35. > :14:40.Persepolis which is an animated story about the Iranian revolution
:14:40. > :14:46.was aired on a television channel and as soon as it went out, the
:14:46. > :14:52.director of that television channel found himself in prison facing
:14:52. > :14:56.charges, still faces charges and could face five years in jail. Why?
:14:56. > :15:02.When you talk about the independence of judiciary, you
:15:02. > :15:07.cannot get it both ways. I challenge anybody who could put a
:15:07. > :15:12.finger approve even a few things that we have interviewed we have in
:15:12. > :15:19.the judiciary. It is sovereign. It can do whatever as long it is
:15:19. > :15:27.supported. Forgive me, your party is still using one of article from
:15:27. > :15:31.the penal code 121 which was used time and again to crush dissident
:15:31. > :15:37.opinion and to quell freedom of expression. Your government still
:15:37. > :15:44.uses it. With respect, you have the National Assembly, the
:15:44. > :15:49.constitutional assembly. You you must examine the issue of media as
:15:49. > :15:54.the hall. But you're not denying what I am saying? Journalists have
:15:54. > :16:00.been locked up for publishing a picture of a famous footballer with
:16:00. > :16:07.a semi-naked girl friend. We have got many senior journalists saying,
:16:07. > :16:13.they are trying to crush the pillars of civil society. But TV
:16:13. > :16:16.incident was not in the days of this government. Yes but I have not
:16:17. > :16:21.heard your government speak out against it. Something else is
:16:21. > :16:26.extremely important. You have freedom of belief and expression in
:16:26. > :16:31.any country. You must have the balance right between how to
:16:31. > :16:36.respect both. Let me push you on one plate. It is about the director
:16:36. > :16:41.of the TV channel. You have the opportunity to say to the Tunisian
:16:41. > :16:46.people and the Arab world that no, you think it is wrong for a
:16:46. > :16:52.television executive to be facing charges, potentially a long-term of
:16:52. > :16:57.imprisonment, because he chose to air a movie. A fiction. It happened
:16:57. > :17:02.to say things about the Iranian revolution, at one point it
:17:02. > :17:09.presented an animated image of court. Do you think that is wrong?
:17:09. > :17:19.To arrest and imprison some body for that? I am not in favour of any
:17:19. > :17:25.body to be imprisoned for his views. This is clear. Second, it is
:17:25. > :17:30.important within democracy had to be responsible in dealing with
:17:30. > :17:39.things. The film has been aired before and it did not raise any
:17:39. > :17:45.problems. But the translation was highly provocative, and that made
:17:45. > :17:55.it the problem. Let's move on to a different aspect of justice and
:17:55. > :17:55.
:17:55. > :18:00.choosier. Insuring that this country can stabilise and move
:18:00. > :18:04.forward. Kennet when there has not been any sense of justice to leave
:18:04. > :18:08.it for the people who suffered so much under the previous regime? Am
:18:08. > :18:13.thinking of yourself. You were brutally tortured and imprisoned
:18:13. > :18:18.for more than one year. You have described how the savage beatings
:18:18. > :18:23.left parents in your back broken. It's possible the people who did
:18:23. > :18:31.that to you are still walking the streets. They are. Do you what to
:18:31. > :18:39.see them pay for the crimes they committed against you? First novel,
:18:39. > :18:46.they are free. This gives you... We are the victims. Usually we have to
:18:46. > :18:54.lock them up in the jail. We did not. We will not let the debt
:18:54. > :19:00.market is the judiciary who deals with that. They deal with it
:19:00. > :19:06.separately from the resume war the government. Personally, I have
:19:06. > :19:15.chosen to denounce them. Why? I believe that they are part of the
:19:15. > :19:23.system. It was prevailing in the time of the previous regime. If it
:19:23. > :19:26.was not X, it would be white. taking that view, and waving a
:19:26. > :19:31.right to accountability, Auntie leaving Tunisia and Tunisians with
:19:31. > :19:40.a whole lot of unfinished Business? You might be able to rise above it
:19:40. > :19:50.but many of York citizens cannot. am coming to that. We have a
:19:50. > :19:53.
:19:53. > :19:57.victory -- transitional justice. Just as which is in place. It is
:19:57. > :20:04.like the conciliation Bint survive the crash. What we are interested
:20:04. > :20:12.in, more crucial than punishing the guilty, it is important to have
:20:12. > :20:18.people who never again happen to any Tunisians or any human beings.
:20:18. > :20:22.How? We have to know the structures and the mechanisms that led to that.
:20:22. > :20:30.We can make the right decisions in order to block such things
:20:30. > :20:34.happening again. A final thought for you. It is not about the
:20:34. > :20:42.attraction to new business but the attraction of the ideas that we
:20:42. > :20:47.have discussed. It seemed to me that you represent him movement
:20:47. > :20:51.which could attract attention across the Arab world, across the
:20:51. > :20:57.wider world, if you can make a success of what you're trying to do.
:20:58. > :21:01.You have called it a golden opportunity. But look around the
:21:01. > :21:07.neighbourhood. Look what is happening in Egypt where the
:21:07. > :21:13.military is very reluctant to get rid of power. Look at Syria where
:21:13. > :21:17.the regime is prepared to kill thousands of people. Look at the
:21:17. > :21:23.Gulf Arab states where monarchy's did appear interested in your
:21:23. > :21:32.message of democracy and reform. What makes you think that the
:21:32. > :21:36.Tunisian model can lead to a new Arab politics? Flores, it is a
:21:36. > :21:45.golden opportunity for Tunisia to do that. It is a golden opportunity
:21:45. > :21:50.for whoever wishes to have the same thing. We and not really trying to
:21:50. > :21:59.impose anything ought to export a thing. It is not a revolution for
:21:59. > :22:07.export. It is up to the people. Our people get find the idea. Dietrich,
:22:07. > :22:15.how to deal with the heavy guard and corrupted regime. -- Dietrich.
:22:15. > :22:21.They have dealt with it. We do not like that there'll positions, or
:22:21. > :22:31.people who want to change to use any kind of weapons or military
:22:31. > :22:31.
:22:31. > :22:38.means, because that is not the case. That is not the model of Tunisia.
:22:38. > :22:47.But if you grow that road, I think you would lose your soul, he would
:22:47. > :22:54.lose that peacefulness. The people need a peaceful and civil democracy.
:22:54. > :23:02.The civility would be affected. Instable peaceful democracy in
:23:02. > :23:07.Tunisia is what you want. Even in the end he has seen as not be right
:23:07. > :23:13.way to achieve it, -- if Ennahda is not seen as the right way and they
:23:13. > :23:19.very due out of offers, you will accept? Of course. Our main goal is
:23:19. > :23:25.to contribute in delivering to our people in system, a charismatic
:23:25. > :23:32.system but as I mentioned, a charismatic democratic system which