(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 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 Ménard.
On 29 August 2003, a local court in Zarzis sentenced Zouari for “failing to obey an administrative decision”. He had been on a hunger strike since his arrest on 17 August in the Ben Guerdane (500 km south of Tunis) market.
The 46-year-old journalist, who works for “Al Fajr”, an unofficial Islamist publication, was released on 6 June 2002 after spending 11 years in prison. Since his release, he was ordered to live in the southeastern town of Zarzis, far from his family in Tunis.
Zouari’s lawyers said the order banned him from leaving Médnine province (which includes Zarzis) and that he was in the province when he was arrested by plainclothes police. According to Zouari, police harassed him and continually tried to restrict his movements.
On 18 July 2003, he was sentenced to four months in prison for “defamation” after complaining about being barred from using a cybercafé in Zarzis.
