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Redeyef is a town in the Gafsa Governorate, southwest Tunisia with population of 28,000. 3000 of them are graduates but jobless. I ‘ve met people of 50 years old, who had never a stabled job. City industry is mainly based on phosphate mining. On 2008 the miners decided to protest for their rights by demonstrations, hunger strikes and occupations. Women were fighting too. To escape from arrestment, workers had hidden in the caves outside the town where women brought them food. Ben Ali sent police forces to ‘drown’ the revolts. Men and women have imprisoned and tortured. Some of them got free after the 2010 revolution… Of course, there was no freedom for the press to speak about the 2008 miners’ uprising. Report & photography by Maro Kouri

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870 Street life in Redeyef © Maro Kouri 871 '’I kept all my 9 children in the house during the revolution days. I did not want them dead", Mr Mohammad says, outside his straw warehouse © Maro Kouri 872 Old men play traditional backgammon © Maro Kouri 873 Young men in an empty play station cafe of Redeyef © Maro Kouri 875 Streetlife of Redeyef © Maro Kouri 876 In the market of Redeyef © Maro Kouri 877 Portrait of a woman in the streets of Redeyef © Maro Kouri 878 On 2008 Redeyef’ protests, journalist Mr Bukatous was reporting directly for the satellite channel Hersuar. This was enough for Ben Ali regime to judge him. For a year he was hidden till they found him, tortured and imprisoned him. How can he forget? On 29, May 2011 he visited the totally burnt police station of Redeyef. © Maro Kouri 879 They ‘ve been imprisoned, insulted and tortured, because of their ideology. Ms Bennnacer Afer, 39, she was imprisoned for two years, when she was student in 1994. ''The policemen of Ben Ali regime were using different styles of torturing", she says. She was one of the activists during the 2008 Redeyef revolution together with 27-years old Chraiti Ghamem who was studying nursing when he was kicked out from the university by minister' decision. Policemen tortured him naked in front of his son © Maro Kouri 880 Women of Erdeyef are fighting for work, dignity and education since 2008, when men have been hidden in caves to protect themselves from armed police, or have been imprisoned. Many women have been imprisoned and tortured by police of Ben Ali dictatorship. On May 29, 2011 they welcomed Hamma Hammami, spokesperson for the banned Tunisian Workers’ Communist Party (Parti Communiste des Ouvriers Tunisiens, PCOT). Hammami was acting illegally during Ben Ali regime when communism was an illegal movement (and Islamism too). © Maro Kouri 881 View of Redeyef © Maro Kouri
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