Jailed Pirate Party member becomes Tunisian government minister

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2011/01/jailed-pirate-party-member-becomes-tunisian-government-minister.ars

by mcantelon • 16 years ago

92 17 16 years ago

arstechnica.com

michaelty• 16 years ago

Pirates, pirates everywhere!

Gianteye• 16 years ago

Apparently you can't have a party, even a political one, without "Arrrrrr."

pavel_lishin• 16 years ago

> Several junior ministers have already walked out after it became clear that key jobs, including interior and defense, won't be changing hands. For its part, the new government has pledged to hold a full slate of elections within the next few months, saying that current ministers were still needed to maintain stability during the transition period.

You just had a revolution, guys.

malkia• 16 years ago

Where was the mainstream media on that one? And thank you ArsTechnica!

rmah• 16 years ago

The NYTimes had extensive coverage of the situation in Tunisia.

danohuiginn2• 16 years ago

Where was the social media?

Seriously: most mainstream outlets I follow have devoted a reasonable amount of space to Tunisia, albeit hampered by an obvious lack of experts on the situation there. Social media? very little. Pretty much the only stuff I've seen has come via the pirate parties or the far left.

Possibly it's just my friends and contacts being unusual -- but my hunch is that if you tried to quantify online attention to Tunisia, you'd find it lower than in the mainstream press.

jdp23• 16 years ago

Is http://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=slim Hacker News' first high-level government official? :-)

The Guardian also covered this in http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jan/18/tunisia-dissiden...

electromagnetic• 16 years ago

Now the question is: Is diplomatic immunity retroactive?

bitskits• 16 years ago

It will be interesting to see just how much influence he's able to have. Even without being the leader of a major government, this could make a difference in how the party is perceived. Just having a Pirate Party member in government is pretty significant, IMO.

cabalamat3• 16 years ago

> It will be interesting to see just how much influence he's able to have.

The giovernemtn have said there will be democratic elections within 60 days. If they renege on this, it would probably make sense for him to resign, lest he be seen as a collaborator with the old regime.

> Just having a Pirate Party member in government is pretty significant, IMO.

He's the first Pirate in government, as far as I know.

hermanthegerman• 16 years ago

Oops - maybe the ruling class in Tunisia should have made the state their intellectual property.

mahmud• 16 years ago

I would be cautious about celebrating this. It might be a bit of a tokenism; the former runner ups are replacing Bin-Ali and his family, and they might be trying to hijack the revolution by placating the youth.

cabalamat3• 16 years ago

I'm reminded of the Romanian revolution in 1989, when some of the 2nd tier of Communist leaders started calling themselves the "National Salvation Front" and stayed in power.

Joakal• 16 years ago

I read that he's the "State Secretary for Youth and Sports." Not quite a minister.

fab13n• 16 years ago

That's most likely a direct transposition from French "secretaire d'etat", which is just a junior minister.

Jailed Pirate Party member becomes Tunisian government minister

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