Unlike scores of newspapers launched later by political activists to rally against the second-class-citizen status imposed on Tunisians in the wake of the French occupation in 1881, the weekly Arra'id Attunisi solely mirrored the views of the local authorities and echoed news mainly carried by Egyptian and Turkish papers. After the country’s independence in 1956, it became the official gazette.
The price for critical journalism during the
75-year French Protectorate was sometimes costly. In 1911 Arab-language
newspapers were banned for nearly 10 years. And in 1912, Ali Bach Hamba, editor
of Le Tunisien, the first Tunisian French-language newspaper, and some
of his colleagues were forced into exile. Other writers were jailed. All were
all accused of being behind social unrest that led to repression and bloodshed
in
But there were times of tolerance for freedom of
expression during the French occupation unseen after the country’s independence
in 1956, and particularly since Gen. Zine El Abidine Ben Ali toppled President
Habib Bourguiba in a bloodless coup 23 years ago. Despite the colonial climate
of segregation and humiliation, “journalists enjoyed then more freedom and
censorship was less stifling than today,” Mohamed Talbi, 89, former dean of the
Tunis Faculty of Arts and currently president of the banned Observatory for the
Freedom of Press, Publishing and Creation (OLPEC) told CPJ.
Bourguiba and his companions, who led the
resistance to French occupation, established groups and critical newspapers,
such as L’Action Tunisienne. Rarely, however, were they targeted by the
kind of vengeful persecution like that of ailing
journalist Fahem Boukaddous. His wife and lawyers told CPJ that his acute
health problems could lead to his death in prison. Scores of political
prisoners have died of lack of medical care in the country’s notorious prisons
over the past two decades.
The imprisonment in October of Zouhair
Makhlouf and Taoufik Ben Brik was just as rancorous. Since his release in
April, Ben Brik has been constantly harassed and receiving anonymous threats on
the phone and his home and visitors under tight police surveillance.
The circle of repression of critical journalism has
not stopped widening since Ben Ali’s top advisers ordered the closure of the
independent weekly Ar-Rai a few weeks
after his coup. The last and banned issue carried a column by CPJ International
Press Freedom Award winner Naziha Réjiba
casting doubt on
the ability of the new ruler to lead
Scores of Tunisian journalists have been forced
into exile. And more foreign correspondents have been expelled or denied entry
to
On July 27, Zied El Heni of the
democratically elected board of the National Syndicate of Tunisian Journalists evicted
in 2009 (and a leading figure in the African Federation of Journalists) spent
several hours at a police station in
No wonder
Attacks on freedom of expression intensified
before Ben Ali’s reelection in October 2009 for a fifth term and in the wake of
the publication in France of a critical book, La Régente de Carthage, on
the rising political and economic influence of his wife, Leila Trabelsi, and
his ubiquitous relatives and in-laws. At least four journalists received death
threats, and oblique tactics to harass and to drag reporters into courts and to
block websites and prevent the distribution of beleaguered opposition news
papers—particularly
Al-Mawkif—have been on the rise over the past months.
Like Rejiba, many believe that the decision to
intensify the war on freedom of expression is intended to shield Ben Ali’s
family from criticism at a time when their influence over the country’s
economic and political institutions, including the media and the judiciary, is
increasing rapidly. The sudden adoption in mid-June by the Tunisian Chamber of
Deputies of a bill that reinforces
the arsenal of legislation used to stifle of freedom of expression is
widely seen as a new weapon to further protect the ruling family from scrutiny.
So far concern expressed
by Tunisia’s European and U.S. allies have prompted only the customary and
groundless claim by the government that all documented facts about press
freedom violations, whether gathered by human rights researchers or Western
diplomats, were based on “false information.” In July, the
Tunisian ministry of foreign affairs said the U.S. State Department
spokesman, who had deplored “a decline in political freedoms in
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