TUNISIA: Journalist arrested, online newspaper censored

IFEX - News from the international freedom of expression community
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ALERT - TUNISIA

6 June 2002

Journalist arrested, online newspaper censored

SOURCE: Reporters sans frontières (RSF), Paris

(RSF/IFEX) - RSF has protested the 4 June 2002 arrest of Zouhair Yahyaoui,
founder and editor of the online newspaper "TUNeZINE", and the government's
suppression of the newspaper's website.

"Barely two weeks after the referendum on the constitution, whose proposed
amendment would supposedly boost human rights in Tunisia, President Zine
el-Abidine Ben Ali has shown the true nature of his regime as a police state
that stifles all dissenting opinion," said RSF Secretary-General Robert
Ménard in a letter to Interior Minister Hedi M'Henni. "We demand the
immediate release of Yahyaoui and the reappearance of 'TUNeZINE.com'," he
added.

Yahyaoui was arrested at a Tunis cybercafé, where he was working, by six
plainclothes police officers who showed no credentials and gave no reason
for his arrest. The police officers escorted him to his home, searched his
bedroom and seized his computer equipment.

Yahyaoui, who uses the pseudonym "Ettounsi" ("The Tunisian"), set up the
website in July 2001 in order to circulate news about the fight for
democracy and freedom in Tunisia. He published opposition material online
and was one of the first people to circulate a letter from Judge Makhar
Yahyaoui (his uncle) to President Ben Ali in which the judge criticised the
country's legal system.

During the 26 May referendum on the constitution, "TUNeZINE" staged its own
online referendum, asking readers if they thought Tunisia was "a republic, a
kingdom, a zoo or a prison?" From 26 to 28 May, the newspaper held a forum
on the government's referendum and the state of the country's opposition
which drew a very large number of participants.

The website has been censored by the authorities since it was launched.
However, each week a list of "proxy" addresses has been available, enabling
Tunisians to access the website. The website vanished from the Internet a
few hours after Yahyaoui's arrest, reportedly because police forced him to
reveal the access code. The authorities have not given his family or lawyers
information about his whereabouts and claim to have no trace of the
journalist.

RSF notes that over the past six months, one journalist has been jailed, two
others have been physically attacked, two publications have been seized and
two others have been suspended in Tunisia.

For further information, contact Virginie Locussol at RSF, rue Geoffroy
Marie, Paris 75009, France, tel: +33 1 44 83 84 84, fax: +33 1 45 23 11 51,
e-mail: [email protected], Internet: http://www.rsf.fr

The information contained in this alert is the sole responsibility of RSF.
In citing this material for broadcast or publication, please credit RSF.
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