Foreigners arrested- Police Spokesman on TV was wrong
| - Right I got to the bottom of that Swedish hunter story. -The word on the street was that "the police had arrested foreign mercenaries with guns" .. First people said they were Germans and then Swedes.
- To me that story is obviously ridiculous. - There is so much rubbish on the internet, it was difficult to find the correct details. After 1 hour I had the inspiration to check Radio Sweden .. There I found a 6 minute interview with the tour leader. - I was blaming Facebook for spreading rumours, but I see that it was one of the police bosses who misinformed the public. He came on Tunisian TV to say 3 Germans with guns had been arrested. This story grew into "there are foreign mercenaries with guns"
WRONG 1 - He said German he meant Swedish
WRONG 2 - They were NEVER ARRESTED, they had been rescued from the mob by the army who then took them to the
Police Station. When the leader arrived the police apologised and gave back then the guns and the Swedes went
back to their hotel.
- On the basis of that false story we 2 foreigners were stopped and searched 4 times on Monday and Tuesday
I can understand why Tunisians believe this story
- it's that standard political trick "blame the foreigners"- It's very attractive idea that somehow
foreigners are killing other Tunisians instead of accepting theat the killing is done by other Tunisians.
And it's a standard political trick for politicians to use it allows them to create
national unity a feeling in the minds of the people that is an "us" with the "non us" being foreigners
.. and if you are one of "us" you must vote for me cos I am the representative of "us". He then
begins to exploit his own countrymen worse than any foreigner has ever done.
What is the Difference between a Right Wing newspaper and someone writing on their Facebook page ?
Facebook problem in Tunisia - when it gets it wrong a Right Wing newspaper sometimes corrects itself. More Freedom equals more information but that doesn't mean more truth as there are more untrue versions of a story but only one true one.
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the proper swedish hunters story link to the proper Swedish hunters story on Radio Sweden : the audio gives the best full account of the story
- they had been in Tunisia 10 days hunting pigs
- They went to the airport to fly home, but flight was cancelled so they returned to the hotel in 2 taxis
-the Police and immigration had told them to take the guns in the taxis as there was no place to store them.
-the taxi drivers were not happy with the money so they phoned the mob. The people in the organiser's taxi were beaten up by the mob.
- the police came and resolved the situation and gave the hunters back their guns.
- Then he found the other taxi had been stopped in a different place by the mob, and his people were even more badly beaten, before they were rescued by the army who took them to a police station.
- Then unfortunately the message got confused and a senior policeman reported on TV that they had arrested 3 German mercenaries with guns. It seems that aswell as wrongly calling the Swedes Germans he was wrong again, they had not been arrested and they were given their guns back except for 1 that was somehow lost.
- He said the police and army were polite and apologised.
- He has beeen hunting in Tunisia for 40 years and bringing tourists since 1974.
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- The fact that the story most Tunisians on the street give me is so completely different :
they say "Yes Foreign German mercenaries were caught with guns" shows the problem with freedom of speech and s
ocial media that untrue stories stick and are not corrected.
| Mr Bond or Mr Bean ? | People said "well the soldiers thought you were a spy" ha ha they accuse me of being James Bond In debate you can't prove a negative you can't prove "you are not Santa Claus" But 1. I thought James Bond stayed in fancy hotels, drove fast cars and had lots of women. Does James Bond do the same as me ? to travel such a long time I have to stay at the cheapest hotels, travel by bus sitting next to the old women or argue with taxi drivers about the price always and I get no sex at all .. That's my life 2. BY the way as Harvey pointed out We were both here well before it all started. So all the soldiers need to do is check the entry into Tunisia date in our passports and then they see we were in Tunisia 4 weeks before any demonstrations started so it's got nothing to do with us, we are not psychic. - Also I don't know what spys do .. Aren't they supposed to be infiltrating government offices or big companies, so they would use someone who spoke Arabic surely, neither me or Harvey speak Arabic. I'm more Mr Bean than Mr Bond.
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