Journalist sentenced to four months in prison

Reporters Without Borders strongly protested today against a "trumped-up" four-month jail sentence imposed on journalist Abdallah Zouari, who has already spent 11 years in prison, and demanded its immediate cancellation. The 18 July sentence was for "defamation" after he had complained about being barred from using a cybercafé in the southeastern town of Zarzis, where the case was tried. "Zouari has been constantly harassed and spied on for months," said Reporters Without Borders secretary-general Robert Ménard. "The authorities have run out of things to accuse him of and have come up with this excessive punishment on a ridiculous and bogus charge." After being forbidden to go online at a cybercafé in Zarzis on 19 April, he said he would call his lawyer. The manageress had then filed a complaint against him for defamation. He was tried on 11 July. Zouari has been officially confined to Zarzis since 6 June last year, when he was freed from prison after 11 years for "belonging to an illegal organisation." He is separated from part of his family, who live in Tunis. The journalist, who worked for Al Fajr, unofficial organ of the Islamist An Nahda movement, was sentenced on 23 August last year to eight months imprisonment by a Zarzis court for refusing to obey the restriction order by living in Tunis.