The year 2011 will have been Technicolor for the Africart. This cinema will have seen all colors! After being attacked by people, apparently belonging to extremist religious groups, now he almost was transformed into a fitness room. At least, this is what some have supposed. It was saved not by a petition as one might think but by a law of … 1982.
Lifting shields at the end of September to save the Africart not from Salafists but from a transformation of cinema into a fitness room.
A petition, “Save the Africart cinema”, was put online to defend this room which was taken up, in 2006, by Familia Productions, structure of theatrical, choreographic, audiovisual, broadcasting and artistic training founded in 1992 by the actress and dramatic author Jalila Baccar and the dramatic author, director, director and trainer Fadhel Jaibi, Bel Hédi, cultural animator and producer, who manages Africart.
Freedom, a sensitive string …
In this petition, it is said that “following last June events during the screening of Nadia Fani’s film, the El Mouradi channel refuses to renew the lease of Africart cinema. The room will therefore be closed. The El Mouradi hotel chain, which lives on tourism, is the enemy of culture and open -mindedness. The Ministry of Culture under the leadership of an overly soft and completely passive minister does not take a stand. Sign to save Africart cinema, the only cinema in Tunisia to offer an intelligent and varied programming, a film club, a space of freedom and culture. If we do not save one of the last rooms in Tunis, we will say goodbye to our freedoms ”. A petition that plays not only on patriotic fiber, but also on the infringement of freedom, a very sensitive rope currently, while indexing a “too soft” minister and a chain of hotels who prefers tourism (of which she brings her employees to life and as if it was not her most total right – also touches freedom!)
A Minister of Culture not so soft!
Finally, it could be that everything is good that ends well and not thanks to this petition but to the intervention of a minister “too soft” ultimately not so soft as that! Indeed, Ezzeddine Bechaouch referred, to prevent the closure of the Africart, to a law relating to cultural infrastructure. These are law n ° 82-89 of December 20, 1982, Jort (82), from 12/21/82: 2765.2766.
In this jort of December 21, 1982, we can read: “Law n ° 82-89 of December 20, 1982, relating to cultural infrastructure. In the name of the people, we Habib Bourguiba, President of the Tunisian Republic; the Chamber of Deputies having adopted; promulgate the law whose content follows ”. Are, then mentioned different articles in three chapters. It is the third that interests the situation of the Africart. This chapter, entitled “of the census, protection and conservation of cultural infrastructure”, contains an article which declares: “the premises with cultural activity intended for the public can be deviated from their initial destination only on authorization of the Minister of Cultural Affairs”.
Faced with such a legal argument, the Mouradi channel can only bow, especially since the following article says: “If cultural equipment has been deleted or if work likely to modify the assignment has been carried out without the exceptional authorization of the Ministry of Cultural Affairs, the Minister of Cultural Affairs can order the delivery of the premises in their previous state, to the costs of the owner or the operator within 6 months of the form of form.”
Zouhour Harbaoui-Tunis-Hebdo
