Imprisoned cyber-dissident risks five-year jail sentence

Reporters Without Borders today denounced as "outrageous" tomorrow's scheduled trial of Tunisian cyber-dissdent of Zouhair Yahyaoui, founder and editor of the online news site TUNeZINE, and said it feared more Tunisian cyber-dissidents would be arrested in coming days. "He is facing a five-year prison sentence just for putting news on an Internet website," said Reporters Without Borders secretary-general Robert Ménard. "This is outrageous. Since the 26 May constitutional referendum, President Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali has committed all kinds of abuses against his opponents. When is this going to stop?" Ménard protested to interior minister Hedi M'Henni on 5 June against his arrest and called for his immediate release. Yahyaoui is due to appear tomorrow before Judge Akram Mnekkebi, of the 4th division of the Tunis magistrates court, charged under clause 2 of Article 306b of the criminal code which requires between six months and five years imprisonment and a fine of between 200 and 2,000 dinars for "knowingly putting out false news giving the impression of a criminal attack on persons or property."   Yahyaoui was arrested on 4 June at a Tunis cybercafé where he was working by six plainclothes police, who showed no credentials and gave no reason for the arrest. He was taken to his home, where the police searched his bedroom and seized his computer equipment. His lawyers visited him on 11 June at the April 9 Civil Prison in Tunis and found him in good health. Yahyaoui, who uses the pseudonym "Ettounsi" ("Tunisian"), set up the site in July last year to put out 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 his uncle, Judge Makhar Yahyaoui, to President Ben Ali criticising the country's legal system. Between 26 and 28 May, TUNeZINE organised an online forum on the referendum and the state of the opposition which drew a very large number of participants.   The website has been censured by the authorities from the start. But each week a list of "proxy" addresses has been available so Tunisians could get round the blockage and access the site. A few hours after Yahyaoui's arrest, the site had vanished from the Internet, reportedly because police obtained the access code to it. The site has since returned but access from Tunisia is only possible with very powerful proxy addresses. Reporters Without Borders notes that over the past six months in Tunisia, one journalist has been jailed, two physically attacked, two publications seized and two others suspended. Yahyaoui's website