Tunisia: Internal Exile Used to Silence Dissident

Tunisian authorities should stop harassing journalist and former political prisoner Abdallah Zouari, and end his banishment in the remote south of the country, Human Rights Watch said. Since Zouari completed an 11-year prison sentence in 2002, authorities have sought to silence and punish him because of his outspoken criticism of government policies, notably on human rights. Zouari has been confined to a rural district in Medenine province, 500 kilometers from his family's home in suburban Tunis, jailed three times, placed under round-the-clock police surveillance and intermittently prevented from using local Internet cafés to communicate with others. Zouari has been on a hunger strike since January 23 to protest the rejection of his numerous written requests to authorities for permission to visit his family.