focus I focus I
for me to work on transparency and access to
information which was previously censored.
My father is the first and only judge who spoke about
judicial independence under the dictatorship in 2000
and he lost everything he had, including his job. At
that time I was 16 years old, I was ashamed to tell
people that my father was a judge when I was in high
school. Being judge was synonym of corruption in
Tunisia, even if he was not. When he was fired, I was
very proud to say that my father was the judge who
got fired because he stood up for freedom of justice.
My mother is less known, she is a professor of
computer science, she is part of the first generation
of computer science teachers in Tunisia, she started
from nothing and worked her way up to this position.
FFL : What is your dream when you think about
your personal happiness ? About Tunisia ?
AY : I am very happy, what happens to me is more
than a dream, so all I can dream of is something that
I can’t imagine, that will happen to me in the future.
What I love about life is the fact that we don’t know
where we’re going, we discover things as they
happen to us and we find out how we react to
challenges.
My dream for my country is for the Tunisian elite to
stop hating its own people.
About the NGO
FFL : What was the purpose of the NGO ?
AY : The purpose was to work on freedom of speech
in the constitution. It is an important article that
covers several freedoms such as freedom of
conscience, sexual freedom, etc. Freedoms should
not be prioritized over each other, but once we have
freedom of speech, we can fight for all the other
causes. Very quickly I understood that no freedom
can be defended, as long as we don’t fully understand
what is going on inside the constitutional assembly.
There are numerous organisations that work around
themes that can be discussed in the Constitution, 6