From the "Angolo del Patriota"
Meeting between some members of the new Tunisian government and the Tunisian community in Sicily...
Face to face and very tense, this was the situation between the Tunisian Secretary of State for Emigration, Houcine Jaziri, and the Tunisian community in Palermo. Also present at the meeting were the Console, Abd Rahman Ben Mansour, and Osama Sghaier, representative for Tunisians in Italy at the Constituent Tunisian Assembly. During the Secretary of State's speech, there were tears and shouts from the mothers of the missing who accuse the new provisional government of having forgotten about the "desaparecidos" of the Mediterranean. They are the young men who have been labelled as active participants in the Tunisian Revolution. A further point of interest about the meeting was the presence of the Console Abd Rahman Ben Mansour, who has been severely accused by some members of the community, most noticeably Signora Rebecca Kraiem, for having colluded with the old regime. They are ferocious accusations containing elements which could prove the collusion of the Console with the Ben Ali regime.
Some of the evidence provided by Signora Rebecca Kraiem include the cover of a book, published in French some years ago by Abd Rahman Ben Mansour, when he was serving as the Console of Genoa. Furthermore, there is a report written by the Console about a young Tunisian resident in Italy, accused of international terrorism for having preached some of the precepts of Islam to a group of his fellow nationals. The meeting was useful for the Tunisian community as it dealt with many issues they have to face: the search for a consulate employee and key figure in the Ben Ali party; the RCD (Democratic Constitutional Regrouping); and, their definitive distancing from the Imam of the Tunisian mosque in Palermo, Saleh Dinne Houidi, a figure who has become infamous in the Sicilian capital for corruption.
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