(RSF/IFEX) – RSF has reiterated its call for the immediate release of journalist Abdallah Zouari, who has been on a hunger strike since the moment of his arrest on 17 August 2003 and who is due to appear before the district court in the south-eastern town of Zarzis on 29 August. The organisation again urged […]
(RSF/IFEX) – RSF has reiterated its call for the immediate release of journalist Abdallah Zouari, who has been on a hunger strike since the moment of his arrest on 17 August 2003 and who is due to appear before the district court in the south-eastern town of Zarzis on 29 August.
The organisation again urged the authorities to stop harassing Zouari, who previously served an 11-year prison sentence.
Zouari is staging his hunger strike to protest his arrest by plainclothes police in the Ben Guerdane (500 km south of Tunis) market on a charge of “violating an administrative control measure to which he is subject”. He is being held in Harboub prison in the governorate of Médnine.
Although his family lives in Tunis, Zouari was restricted to Zarzis when he was released on 6 June 2002 upon completion of his 11-year sentence, and he remains subject to this restriction order. His lawyers say the order allows him freedom of movement throughout the governorate of Médnine, including the location of his arrest.
On 18 July, the Zarzis District Court sentenced Zouari to four months’ imprisonment for “defamation” as a result of an argument with an Internet café manager who refused to give him access to the Internet. He has not yet begun serving this sentence because his lawyers appealed the conviction and the appeal has not yet been heard.
Zouari, aged 46, is a journalist with “Al-Farj”, an unofficial publication of the Islamist opposition movement Ennahda.
