Tunisia

(RSF/IFEX) – RSF has called for a full investigation into the recent assault on journalist and human rights activist Sihem Bensedrine. Bensedrine was attacked on 5 January 2004 as she left her home to go to an Internet cafe. She was accosted by three men in the street. The youngest of the three, whom she […]

(RSF/IFEX) – RSF has called for the case to be dropped against “Om Zied” (real name: Neziha Rejiba), editor-in-chief of the online magazine “Kalima”, whose appeal trial is scheduled to open on 31 December 2003. Om Zied was given an eight-month suspended jail sentence and fined 1,200 dinars (approximately US$1,000; 800 euros) on 18 November […]

(WAN/IFEX) – The following is a WAN press release: Geneva, Switzerland, 9 December 2003 Coalition on Press Freedom Calls for Information Summit to Abandon Tunisia A global coalition of free press organisations has called on the World Summit on the Information Society to move its 2005 meeting from Tunisia because the country does not respect […]

(RSF/IFEX) – RSF has called on French President Jacques Chirac to do everything possible to get his Tunisian counterpart, Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali, to allow a free and independent media in the country. Chirac is visiting Tunisia on 3 and 4 December 2003. “You cannot pretend any longer, for economic and security reasons, that the […]

(IFJ/IFEX) – The following is an IFJ press release: IFJ Accuses Tunisian Authorities of Targeting Journalists in a Bid to Silence Critics The International Federation of Journalists today accused the Tunisian authorities of misusing the law to silence critics, after a court in Tunis gave journalist and human rights activist Neziha Rejiba an eight-month suspended […]

(RSF/IFEX) – RSF has welcomed the conditional release of Tunisian cyber-dissident Zouhair Yahyaoui on 18 November 2003, after more than 18 months in prison. He had criticised the regime of President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali on the Internet. “His release cannot make us forget how he was ill-treated in prison, where he was sent […]

(RSF/IFEX) – RSF has voiced outrage that an international congress on the digital divide is being held in Tunisia, a country that is assuming an increasingly important role within international bodies regulating the Internet despite the fact that it is one of the most repressive towards its own Internet users. The congress is being held […]

(RSF/IFEX) – RSF has vehemently protested the ongoing judicial onslaught against journalist Abdallah Zouari, who has been sentenced on appeal to a total prison sentence of 13 months. “One wonders what the Tunisian authorities will come up with next to try to break this journalist, who has already served 11 years in prison,” said RSF […]

(CPJ/IFEX) – The following is a 3 October 2003 CPJ press release: Tunisia: Journalist harassed New York, October 3, 2003-The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is deeply concerned that Tunisian authorities have harassed journalist and human rights activist Néziha Rejiba, also known as Om Zeid. According to the Tunisian press freedom group Observatoire de la […]

(IFJ/IFEX) – The following is an IFJ press release: IFJ Condemns Tunisia for Harassment of Journalist and Human Rights Militant The International Federation of Journalists condemned today the political harassment by Tunisian authorities of famous journalist and human rights militant Neziha Rejiba, better known by the surname “Om Zied”. Upon her return from a trip […]

(RSF/IFEX) – RSF has denounced a new nine-month jail sentence against journalist Abdallah Zouari, who has already spent 11 years in prison, as “grotesque and disgraceful.” “It comes as no surprise that the abuses against him by the Tunisian legal system are continuing under President Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali’s authoritarian regime,” said RSF Secretary-General Robert […]

(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 […]

(HRW/IFEX) – The following is a Human Rights Watch press release: Tunisia: Release Journalist Now (New York, August 22, 2003) – The Tunisian government should release journalist Abdullah Zouari immediately and unconditionally, Human Rights Watch said today. Zouari was arrested after he assisted a Human Rights Watch research mission in the south of Tunisia. Zouari, […]

(RSF/IFEX) – RSF has called on the authorities to stop harassing and immediately release Abdallah Zouari, a journalist who is subject to an internal banishment order. He was arrested by plainclothes police officers at the market in Ben Guerdane (500 km south of Tunis) at 11:30 (local time) on 17 August 2003. Zouari has been […]

(RSF/IFEX) – On 18 July 2003, journalist Abdallah Zouari, who has already spent 11 years in prison, was sentenced to four months’ imprisonment for “defamation” by a court in Zarzis in southeastern Tunisia. The sentence follows an incident in which Zouari complained about being barred from using a cybercafé. RSF has strongly protested the “trumped-up” […]

(RSF/IFEX) – RSF has called on President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali to grant a swift pardon to jailed cyber-dissident Zouhaïr Yahyaoui, who is in very weak condition after staging a series of hunger strikes. On 12 July 2003, the Tunis Court of Cassation, the country’s highest appeal court, rejected a request by Yahyaoui’s lawyer […]