The Angar, this hip-hop festival of the Maghreb and Machrek intends to introduce the Tunisian public to the Arab and local hip-hop scene. Artists from Morocco, Algeria, Syria, Palestine and Lebanon who had to meet to share the scene with Tunisian rappers, and introduce the “underground” scene on December 14 and 15, 2013, in the “Le Colisée” cinema in Tunis from 5 p.m.
This event comes in an increasingly pronounced framework of repression towards Tunisian hip-hop rappers and singers, several of which are languishing behind bars, among them, Weld El 15 who received a sentence of 4 months in prison to reach good morals and contempt for civil servants following his title “The police are dogs”.
Others for drug use as is the case with Tiga and Kafon. The local hip-hop scene seems to be emptying little by little. This event would in a way be a response to the repressive security measures taken by the Ministry of the Interior vis-à-vis Tunisian rappers.
But the ministry’s response was not long in coming. During a conference held yesterday in favor of Jabeur Mejri and Weld El 15, Nejib Abidi, organizer of the festival intervened to explain, that we still struck by prohibiting the visa to some of his guests. “At the beginning, we were made to understand that the visa was refused to groups of Syrian, Palestinian and Lebanese origin, for the following reason: these nationalities are” terrorists “! But this explanation lacks precision. Mazen Sayyed, the singer of “Ras”, one of the visa prohibited groups, had held an anti -police speech last summer and participated in the #free15 campaign “.
Finally, he added “the Ministry of the Interior and that of religious affairs can prohibit concerts, yes, but they will not prohibit us from listening to the music we love, nor to have our freedom to think”.
The concert is maintained for today and tomorrow, despite these unforeseen events, and the organizer promises “good surprises to supplement the absence of these artists” he adds that “coming to the festival is a form of protest in the face of the practices of the police system”. No doubt, that would be the best answer to the incarceration of Weld El 15, the imprisonment of Tiga, Kafon, Dac Mc and so many others.
