French president urged to push media freedom during visit

Reporters Without Borders called today on French President Jacques Chirac to do all he could to get his Tunisian counterpart, Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali, to allow a free and independent media in the North African country, which he will visit on December 3 and 4. "You cannot any longer pretend, for economic and security reasons, that the regime is a free and democratic one," said secretary-general Robert Ménard in a letter to Chirac. "We ask you, as a self-styled friend of the president, to win guarantees of press freedom, which presently does not exist, and a genuinely independent broadcast media." Ben Ali announced on 7 November, the 16th anniversary of his coming to power, that the broadcast media would be opened up to private ownership and said the first privately-owned radio station, Mosaïque FM, would open immediately. He stressed he was keen to encourage the media and "establish freedom of opinion and expression." However, since then, all news has remained tightly controlled by the regime, which does not allow an independent media, even though privately-owned newspapers exist. Reporters Without Borders said it would watch closely to see whether the president's promises were implemented, especially concerning the setting up of new TV stations and greater freedom of Internet access, which is still tightly controlled in Tunisia. Two journalists are in prison in Tunisia - Hamadi Jebali, publisher of the weekly Al Fajr, unofficial organ of the Islamist group An Nahda, who has been held since 1991, and Abdallah Zouari, also of Al Fajr, who was jailed on 8 October for a total of 13 months, after being freed in June last year after 11 years in prison. Freedom of expression is continually abused in Tunisia. Lawyer and human rights activist Radhia Nasraoui, who has been on hunger-strike since 15 October, accuses the authorities of wanting to silence and isolate her because of her human rights work and campaigning against torture. She symbolises the resistance to the regime's gagging of free expression. "Mr President, you talk about the 'excellence of Franco-Tunisian relations' and your 'admiration for the progress made by Tunisia in all fields,' so how can you continue to tolerance this lack of press freedom?" Ménard said in his letter to Chirac. Reporters Without Borders is putting out an ad to coincide with Chirac's visit. It stresses the Tunisian government grip on the media by showing an imaginary newspaper called La Dictée (Written to Order), which repeatedly contains the phrase (in Arabic) "President Ben Ali is a great president." It asks Chirac to "mention this situation to your friend Ben Ali."