Riot police in Tunis used tear-gas on Oct. 9 to disperse hundreds of young Islamists who fought back with stones, knives and sticks. At least 40 were arrested. The Islamists were protesting against Tunisia's long-standing ban on university enrollment by women who wear the niqab, or full-face veil, as well as a TV station's plan to broadcast animated film Persepolis, which they say denigrates their faith. Tunisians will vote in an Oct. 23 election for an assembly to draft a new constitution. The Islamist Ennahda party is expected to win the biggest share of the vote, alarming secularists. (AP, Reuters, Oct. 9)

This week, Libya's Berber (Amazigh) minority held the "First Libyan Amazigh Forum" in Tripoli, under the slogan: "Officialize the Amazigh language and support national unity." The unprecedented conference, which started Sept. 26, opened with the new Libyan national anthem, sung in Arabic and Tamazight, the Berber language. Thousand took part in a Berber music festival, making the Libyan capital echo with lyrics in the long-banned language, with revelers raising the yellow, blue and green Berber flag. "We...want to tell the transitional government and the government...that the Amazighs are an integral part of political life," said Fathi Abu Zakhar, chairman of the preparatory committee. "We want Tamazight inscribed as a right in the constitution."

The death toll from clashes following a soccer match in Western Sahara on Sept. 25 has reached seven, Morocco's MAP official news agency reports, making it the worst violence in the occupied territory since last November. Residents in Dakhla, the site of the match, told Reuters that clashes between ethnic Sahrawi supporters of the home team and Moroccan settlers who supported the visiting team from a town near Casablanca continued until early on Sept. 27. Street-fighting spread through the town as police used teargas, and army troops were ordered into two neighborhoods to restore order.

Libyan leaders, including National Transitional Council (NTC) chairman Mustafa Abdel Jalil, opened a three-day meeting in Benghazi Sept. 25 to begin a discussion regarding the formation of the country's interim government, which is to include a premier, vice premier and 22 ministers. As the NTC's troops continue to scour the country looking for ex-colonel Moammar Qaddafi, who has publicly announced his refusal to surrender, the transitional council continues to make progress within the international community. Last week, the new regime vowed to investigate allegations of human rights abuses after the World Bank recognized the NTC as the official government of Libya. The NTC was responding to an Amnesty International report asserting that both sides of the Libya conflict are responsible for human rights abuses, and warning the NTC to act quickly to investigate these claims. During a meeting in Paris earlier this month chaired by French President Nicholas Sarkozy, the NTC assured world leaders that Libya will be a society of tolerance and respect for the rule of law.

Reviving a protest movement that had become moribund in recent months, some 10,000 Moroccans marched in Casablanca Sept. 25, calling for a boycott of the upcoming elections. The February 20 movement has been continuing to hold weekly Sunday marches in Casablanca, the country's biggest city; after dwindling since the spring they have been growing again as the November parliamentary elections approach. Demonstrators who took to the streets in the sprawling low-income neighborhood of Sbata chanted slogans against government corruption, and the power of the king. "Head of the army, it's too much—head of the religion, it's too much," was one popular slogan, referring to some of the many powers the king keeps under the newly amended constitution. (Miami Herald, Sept. 25; AP, Sept. 18)

As fighting continues in Sirte, David Cameron and Nicolas Sarkozy toured Tripoli to cheering crowds and triumphalist headlines ("David Cameron and Nicolas Sarkozy given heroes' welcomes in Libya"—UK Metro). They pledged to continue NATO bombardment, even as Cameron assured: "This was your revolution, not our revolution." (Read: "This is our revolution." We're reminded of similar British assurances not quite 10 years ago when Afghanistan was invaded—which remains NATO-occupied today.) The New York Times acknowledged some "awkward" contradictions in the junket:

Tuaregs in Mali and Niger have founded an ad hoc human rights group, Defense of Foreigners in Libya, accusing anti-Qaddafi forces of detaining and abusing some 300 foreign nationals, mostly Tuaregs. "What is happening in Libya is very serious," said the group's Ousmane ag-Ahmed. "Foreigners, essentially Tuaregs from Mali and Niger, are being jailed and tortured." He said Tuarges in Libya are being "hunted in the streets," citing the case of six reported missing and rumored to have been killed and buried in a mass grave. The group is coordinated from Kidal, Mali, and Agadez, Niger. It has called upon the governments of both countries to help secure the release of their nationals.

Partisans of either side in the Libyan conflict are touting various claims that foreign fighters were on the other side. The pretty clear political agendas behind these claims makes it difficult to arrive at an objective reading of the situation. A sensationalist but rather confused Sept. 7 account in the DC-area Afro features quotes from former congressman Walter Fauntroy, recently returned from a "self-sanctioned peace mission" to Libya, during which his month-long disappearance sparked rumors of his death. Fauntroy claims much of the fighting attributed to the rebels was actually carried out by NATO special forces troops—who also brutalized the populace: