Taher Arifet
Taher Arifet is a blogger and member of the Association for Defense of Human Rights, an NGO active in the province of Tataouine. The human rights defender is the administrator of the Tataouine Youth Facebook page, which is followed by 65,894 individuals. The page campaigns against the economic and social marginalisation of the local population and the increasing rate of unemployment among youth. The page also regularly publishes news and reports concerning protests in Tataouine.
Following the ousting of President Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali as a result of the historic protests in 2011, the situation for human rights defenders (HRDs) in Tunisia began to improve substantially. In particular the lifting of legal impediments to the work of human rights defenders and progress in the adoption of human rights legislation have been significant. Numerous HRDs who had been persecuted by the Ben Ali's regime found opportunities for viable political participation including, notably, Moncef Marzouki who was elected interim President.
