(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) – 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 charged with “violating an administrative control measure to which he is subject” and is being held in Harboub prison, in the governorate of Médnine.
Although his family lives in Tunis, Zouari was banished to the southeastern town of Zarzis when he was released on 6 June 2002, upon completion of his 11-year prison sentence. According to his lawyers, the banishment order gives him freedom of movement throughout Médnine, including the town where he was arrested. Zouari has accused the police of harassing him and systematically restricting his movement.
Zouari has again been arrested on a “crude pretext,” RSF Secretary-General Robert Ménard said. “We had no illusions about Tunisian justice, but it is bordering on insanity in Zouari’s case.”
On 18 July, the Zarzis District Court sentenced Zouari to four months’ imprisonment for “defamation” following an argument he had with a Internet café manager who refused to let him access the Internet. He had not yet begun serving this sentence because his lawyers appealed the conviction and the appeal has not yet been heard.
Zouari is a journalist with “Al-Farj”, an Islamist publication.
