Facebook activists attack Ghannouchi's official page

Hundreds of Facebook activists staged a protest on Sheikh Rachid Ghannouchi’s official page “the leader of ruling Ennahda movement” to express anger at the law of compensating prisoners during the Zine El Abidine Ben Ali era. Most comments accused the Islamist movement leaders as "stealing" and "betraying" revolutionary aims. One commenter wrote "poor people deserve more compensation; you are trading by religion" and "struggling against injustice and tyranny can't be monetised and can't be valued" another comment said "Allah please accept our fast and pray, oh dear God let us get rid of those traitorous leaders and their supporters". This campaign comes days before discussions on the new draft law about financial compensation for political prisoners which is estimated to total $465 million. This law was one of the main reasons forced by the financial minister in the government headed by the Ennahda movement, pushing Hussein el-Demassy to resign last Friday. In his resigning statement el-Demassy stated "the draft law about returning to work and compensating people who were imprisoned politically will form a new burden of expenses on the state through large numbers of benefactors and the great amount of compensations on the waiting list.” He also mentioned that this law is ignoring economic circumstances expected from the state in the coming years. The government refused these accusations through a spokesman who confirmed that the law had not been adopted yet. A spokesman for the Tunisian Government, Samir Delo, stated that "the government is interested in making prisoner’s compensation not affect the state’s financial balance and other development streams". Many governmental officials confirmed that the compensation will not be for Islamists only, but all people who were imprisoned in Ben Ali's era due to their political views such as Islamists, Leftists, Yousifists, and syndicate members". In the same context, cabinet director of the transitional justice ministry and human rights concerned with political prisoners Chekib Dervish said "compensating this category of prisoners must be offered as a right not a grant and it mustn't be reduced to money only but as a wider and broader meaning".