6/7/2023 0 Comments Thessa lageman“Because he worked illegally, they demanded bribes from him. The police always harassed Mohamed, says Ali. ‘I can’t breathe anymore’.”Ĭorruption within the police and among government officers was common. Our cousin, Lasaad, who controls the taxes in the market told me later about a conversation he’d had with Mohamed a week before his self-immolation. But I wasn’t there.”Īli pauses a moment and adds: “Let me tell you something I haven’t told anyone yet. I would have found a way to see the governor, with force if needed. “If I’d been there with him that day, I would have definitely intervened. “Nobody wanted to listen to him,” says Ali. In an act of sheer desperation and protest, Mohamed set himself alight on the street outside. He went to complain to the governor at the provincial government building in Sidi Bouzid, but he refused to see him. On the morning of December 17, 2010, police had confiscated Mohamed’s scales because he was working as a street vendor without a permit. He was always occupied with work and paying back his debts.” “He would then go home to sleep a few hours, and then repeat that same routine over and over again. “Every day, he took his cart to the wholesale market at midnight to buy fruit and vegetables, which he would sell from early the next morning until evening,” he recalls. So, from an early age, Mohamed supported his mother and six siblings. Mohamed’s father worked in Libya, but died of heart failure when his son was just three years old, Ali explains. “But in the last years of his life, he’d lost his sense of humour because of the daily stress he experienced.” “He used to be a funny guy who laughed a lot,” he recalls. When Mohamed was younger, people called him Basbous, which Ali translates as “someone who makes jokes”. His only problem was that he would get angry quickly and couldn’t see reason anymore.” ‘I can’t breathe anymore’ He used to see his cousin, Mohamed, almost daily, as the 26-year-old often helped out in Ali’s shop. Ali Bouazizi at his supermarket, Al-Jasmin, in the centre of Sidi Bouzid Edwin Bakker, director of the Centre for Terrorism and Counterterrorism at Leiden University, estimated that The Hague's Islamic State supporters consists of 200 men.It is 9pm and Ali, who is now 48 years old, has just returned home from work in his mini-market in Sidi Bouzid, a small town in the centre of Tunisia. A few young men hold up a black IS flag in the background.Īccording to the Dutch General Intelligence and Security Service, the Islamic State movement in the Netherlands amounts to a few hundred followers and several thousand sympathisers. In a YouTube video, he congratulated the Muslim community on the establishment of the caliphate in Iraq and Syria. ![]() ![]() He has been involved in demonstrations in recent years, and has been in contact with fighters in Syria. One of those detained is 32-year-old Azzedine Choukoud, known as Abou Moussa, a charismatic Dutchman of Moroccan descent. Mayor of The Hague, Jozias van Aartsen, said during a press conference that they had caught "big fish" who had "sown hatred and incited terrorism" on social media and news sites. The men detained come from The Hague, the city that positions itself as an international city of peace and justice, and which Islamic State sympathisers have also named "Jihad City". The Hague, Netherlands - Three Dutch citizens were arrested last week on suspicion of recruiting for the hard-line Islamic State (IS) group in its armed struggle in Syria and Iraq, as tensions between radical Muslims and Holland's far-right Pro Patria organisation continue to rise.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |