disturbing developments in Tunisia

Khelil sent me this:  "Thought I'd offer an update on troubling constitutional developments in Tunisia. The good news is that the constitution includes support for Palestinian liberation in the preamble (as I sent you) and recently a committee unanimously approved a provision criminalizing relations with Israel. But, as it stands, it will ban “insults, profanity, derision, and representation of Allah and Mohammed,” and then there's this provision on women: “under the principal of complementarity at the heart of the family and as man’s associate in the development of the country;” one of al Nahda's women MPs (who makes the round without a veil as if that means "moderation") explained the provision by stating that women do not have absolute rights but only in relation to men (in the past, she has also attacked single mothers as people without rights). The provision relating to women was approved by its committee 12 to 8, 9 of the 12 came from al Nahda. The good news is that women's groups are organizing to defeat it in the final ratification in front of the entire assembly. Then there is the ongoing failure to organize an independent electoral commission along with an effort to allow for political appointees to a body that will monitor the press (the initial proposal would have allowed only the journalist trade union to appointment its own members and self-regulate) that may be an effort to politicize the body. Let us remember that al Nahda initially proposed Shari'a as a source of legislation only to back down in front of protest. It did not take long for them to show their true colors."