French media censored in Tunisia because of articles by Tunisian journalist Taoufik Ben Brik

Reporters Without Borders today condemned the action of the Tunisian authorities in banning issues of two French publications, the daily Le Monde and the weekly Le Nouvel Observateur, and blocking the website of a third, the daily Libération, because of articles by Tunisian journalist Taoufik Ben Brik critical of President Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali. “After three years of silence, Taoufik Ben Brik has started to write again and this clearly has not been to the liking of the Tunisian authorities,” Reporters Without Borders said. “None of his articles have been able to circulate inside the country. It must be said that the Ben Ali regime is past master in the art of filtering news and information and preventing the dissemination of any criticism of the president.” The 23 February issue of Le Monde was not distributed in Tunisia because its supplement had a piece by Ben Brik headlined “Who still writes in Tunis?” Reporters Without Borders has established that a total 12 issues of Le Monde were censored by the Tunisian authorities in 2006, in most cases because they had articles about Tunisia. Distribution of Le Monde has become every erratic in Tunisia since the start of 2007. Three issues were censored in the space of a week in February, one of them containing an interview with Tunisian Human Rights League president Mokhtar Trifi. It was the 8 and 21 February issues of Le Nouvel Observateur - both with articles by Ben Brik - that never showed up in Tunisian news stands, while access to Libération's website has been blocked inside Tunisia since 21 February, the day it published a scathing portrait of President Ben Ali by Ben Brik entitled “I will ‘vote' for Ben Ali in 2009.” Access has also been blocked to leblogmedia.com, a blog published by Reporters Without Borders about media news, and the magazine Médias, since it started running a regular column by Ben Brik. Several French publications including the weeklies Charlie Hebdo and Le Canard Enchaîné, have banned in Tunisia for years. Distribution of Libération was banned for the first time in 1992. The authorities are also in the habit of authorising the distribution of an extremely small number of copies of a newspaper to avoid being accused of censorship.