São Paulo – The commissions of Foreign Relations and National Defense and Minorities of the Brazilian House of Representatives honored Tunisia and the organizations that make up its 2015 Nobel Prize-winning National Dialogue Quartet during a ceremony held Wednesday (9) at the House of Representatives in Brasília.
This Thursday (10), the day that the Quartet accepted the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo, Norway, the two commissions sent a joint congratulatory message to Tunisia. “This honor is an acknowledgement of the efforts undertaken by the people of Tunisia to ensure the development of democracy in the country, in spite of terrorist threats,” said at the event the representative Jô Moraes (affiliated with the Minas Gerais chapter of party PC do B), who presides over the Commission of Foreign Relations and was the author of the requirement to submit a Congratulatory Motion to Tunisia.
“There is a Brazil-Tunisia friendship group within the House of Representatives and it decided to render this tribute. This compliment is very important to Tunisia and the Quartet, which has played a key role,” said the Tunisian ambassador in Brasília, Sabri Bachtobji, this Thursday (10).
Tunisia’s National Dialogue Quartet is composed of the Tunisian General Labor Union (UGTT), the Tunisian Confederation of Industry, Trade and Handicrafts (Utica), the Tunisian Human Rights League (LTDH) and the Tunisian Order of Lawyers (ONAT).
On announcing the prize’s winners, the Nobel Peace Prize Committee stated that the group won the accolade for its “decisive contribution to the building of a pluralistic democracy in Tunisia in the wake of the Jasmine Revolution of 2011,” the moniker of the popular uprising that caused president Zine Al-Abidine Ben Ali to step down, in January 2011, leading to the formation of a transitional government and to a new Constitution.
In addition to Jô Moraes and Bachtobji, also participating in the tribute were the president of the Human Rights and Minorities Commission Paulo Pimenta (of the PT party in Rio Grande do Sul), the Palestinian ambassador and dean of the Council of Arab Ambassadors in Brasília, Ibrahim Alzeben, and the ambassador of Zimbabwe in Brasília, Thomas Sukuta Bvuma.
*Translated by Gabriel Pomerancblum
