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From Our Own Correspondent: Tunisia's democracy on the brink

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29/07/2023 GMT

Tunisia's democracy on the brink

BBC World Service - From Our Own Correspondent, Tunisia's democracy on the brink

With parliament dissolved, opponents jailed and soaring prices, how is life in Tunisia?

Tunisia's broken democracy; a journalist’s narrow escape from a deadly missile attack in Ukraine; race reparations in California; and Ghana's search for clues to the next pandemic

Max Pearson introduces correspondent reports from Tunisia, Ukraine, the United States and Ghana.

Tunisia in North Africa was the birthplace of the Arab Spring, a wave of popular uprisings that shook or toppled authoritarian regimes in the region. But, after a decade of fragile democracy, in 2019 a new strongman, President Kais Saied, came to power. Since then parliament has been dissolved, many judges have been jailed, and there've been protests against his increasingly authoritarian rule. What's more, the economy is failing and the country's treatment of sub-Saharan African migrants has been growing harsher.  And as Mike Thomson experienced on a recent trip, the media are being closely watched.

In Ukraine, a Russian missile attack last month on a popular pizza restaurant in the eastern city of Kramatorsk shocked a nation that has had to become used in the past year to the horrors of war. Thirteen people died in the attack, several of them children. Colin Freeman was in the restaurant shortly before the attack, and has been trying to come to terms with what happened.

In California, an official task force has recommended the payment of reparations to the descendants of enslaved Africans, for what they endured and for the effects of racial discrimination. It also proposed measures to redress other instances of discrimination and racial violence against black Californians; Chelsea Bailey met one family seeking justice 60 years after local authorities in Palm Springs burned down their family home.

And, could bats hold the clue to the next pandemic? In Ghana, scientists are studying these small mammals in a bid to understand how viruses can jump between species. Bats can carry thousands of viruses, including the deadly Ebola and Marburg viruses, without getting sick themselves. But with humans increasingly encroaching upon their habitats, Ghanian scientists want to understand the risk to people and what any new threat might be. Naomi Grimley donned full protective gear and went to find out about their work.

Producer: Louise Hidalgo
Production Coordinator: Sabine Shereck
Editor: Bridget Harney

(Photo: Supporters of the Tunisian General Labour Union (UGTT) protest in Tunis. Credit: Reuters/Zoubeir Souissi)

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