Editor of online news website to appear in court

Reporters Without Borders today criticised as “groundless” charges of libel against Omar Mestiri, editor of the online news website Kalima, who is due to appear in a Tunis court tomorrow (2 August) in a lawsuit filed by pro-government lawyer Mohammed Baccar. “The charges are invalid because the article in question cannot be read online inside Tunisia as the website is censored by the authorities,” the worldwide press freedom organisation said. “However, the 18-month prison sentence passed in April 2005 on human rights activist Mohammed Abbou for an article posted on the website Tunisnews shows that such a charge can be severely punished, so we are very concerned about this latest case.” Mestiri is charged under articles 42, 50, 51, 53, 72 and 78 of the press law for publishing an article on 5 September last year expressing surprise at the rehabilitation of Baccar, who was struck off by the national bar council in 2003 after being convicted on several counts of fraud. The journalist was summoned by the state prosecutor's office on 29 March this year for questioning about his source for saying Baccar had been rehabilitated. The facts were not contested. Mestiri told Reporters Without Borders that his trial had been scheduled even though the courts were in summer recess and that he faced six months in prison if convicted. Kalima has been sued and legally hounded before. The Tunis appeals court on 28 February 2004 upheld an eight-month suspended prison sentence and 1,200 dinars (€800) fine imposed on reporter Om Zied (under her real name of Neziha Rejiba) for violating customs and currency exchange laws. Her lawyers denounced the trial as politically-motivated and boycotted the proceedings. Access to Kalima offices and the National Council for Liberties in Tunisia (CNLT) was blocked for nearly six weeks in May this year by a large number of policemen. Tunisia's president for the past 20 years, Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali, is on the Reporters Without Borders worldwide list of 34 “predators of press freedom.” The government is one of the most repressive towards the free flow of online information and the organisation has classified it as an “enemy of the Internet,” along with 12 other countries, such as Belarus and North Korea.