"I am attentive" .. An organization behind the prison of Karoui, the leading candidate for Tunisian presidencies

Badr Eddine Wahibi - Tunisia

As soon as the Tunisian authorities arrested presidential candidate Nabil Karoui on August 23 on charges of money laundering and tax evasion, interpretations and statements accelerated between a supporter of judicial action and a skeptic indicating the government's involvement in moving files in order to exclude Karoui from the political scene and thus exclude him from the race towards palace. Carthage.

As a result of this controversy, various judicial bodies were quick to issue an explanatory statement on the reasons for the arrest of the villager to redirect attention to the Tunisian organization `` I am awake '', which was and remains a key party in a judicial dispute between the two parties dating back to 2016, the date of filing the first complaints against the villager.

Founded on March 21, 2011, following the outbreak of the Tunisian revolution, the group comprises a group of 27-year-olds from different parts of the republic. It defines itself as a non-profit and independent Tunisian regulatory organization that aims to combat financial and administrative corruption and promote transparency. Transparency International's official communication in Tunisia since November 2013.

Housing Bank
The judicial and media battle erupted in July 2016 after the Housing Bank published a report listing the institutions whose indebtedness exceeded one million dinars.
Nesma Broadcast, owned by Nabil Karoui, benefited from suspicious transfers of more than 2 million dinars ($ 701,000) until 2010, raising doubts among members of the "I am awake" group.

According to the project coordinator of the organization, Mowaffak Zouari said that the report of the Housing Bank and its suspicions about the suspicious financial behavior of the villager was the first building block on which the organization was prepared to prepare a file containing 700 official documents that were evidence that led to the issuance of a detailed statement, and then go to the judiciary in September. September 2016.

Zouari adds to Al Jazeera Net that in addition to the investigative work carried out by the Organization's media team, which contributed to the drafting of the file, most of the sources of documented information was through communication with state institutions, such as the National Authority for Access to Information, the National Institute of Institutions and Industrial Property .

Not the only one
In this regard, the organization "I am awake" has filed cases in Tunisian courts against other candidates, including the current Prime Minister Youssef Chahed, and the presidential candidate in what is known as the case of lifting the freeze on the funds of Marwan Mabrouk, son-in-law of ousted President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, and against another candidate, Hatem Boulibar. In what is known as the deal jammed fraudulent devices purchased by the Ministry of Education, Zouari says that the two cases awaiting a decision in the courts.

The head of the organization "I am awake" Ashraf Awadi in a post before the suspension of the villager about the fate of cases against prominent political figures such as the former minister in the current government, Mehdi Ben Gharbia, Shahid and Boulbiyar.

He called Awadi to neutralize the judiciary in dealing with the files of the corrupt, and not to push the existing controversy towards issues that he considered a subsidiary, such as questioning the implications of the timing of stopping the villager before the election, and the doubts raised by his supporters in this regard.

The organization says that it refuses to push the file of arrest and imprisonment of Karoui to a political corner that loses the fight against corruption in Tunisia, and stresses that its members are tasked only to monitor and follow up on suspicions of corruption, and to prepare coherent and serious files to push the judiciary to move, which chooses the timing of the action based on the progress of investigations.

Leaks and threats
The case against al-Qarawi and its institutions, which began in late 2016, has not been free from tensions that have spilled over more than two years. According to journalist Mohammed al-Jalali, who works on the journalist group "I am attentive" - ​​Al Jazeera Net tried to put many pressures Members of the organization "in the context of a dirty war aimed at mutilating the members of the organization exposed leaks of audio recordings of meetings held for the same purpose in 2017."

Al-Jalali added that with the intensification of the judicial and media crisis between the two parties were detected "suspicious movements" around the former headquarters of the organization, where individuals were seen taking pictures of the headquarters hidden, and from different angles in the context of psychological warfare villager tried to shed the members of the organization and their families, but it - They did not and will not lose sight of their will and determination to expose corruption and push for accountability.

Zouari says that over the past two years Tunisian courts have witnessed about 26 cases filed by the villager against "I am attentive" for defamation and defamation in which the judiciary ruled that the case was not heard and invalidated.