Release of journalist Hamadi Jebali and the “Zarzis Internet-users”

Reporters Without Borders notes the release of Hamadi Jebali, editor of the weekly Al Fajr, on 25 February 2006, after 15 year in prison. The Tunisian authorities have also freed the “Zarzis Internet-users" who were jailed in April 2004. "We are relieved by this decision on the part of the Tunisian authorities, but it does not take away the fact that Hamadi Jebali spent more than 15 years behind bars in horrifying conditions, after a travesty of a trial,” said the press freedom organisation. “He also went on numerous hunger strikes, and was several times put in solitary confinement. We hope that no-one else will ever have to suffer the same fate in Tunisia,” it added. "We remain concerned by the state of press freedom in a country in which journalists are unable to express themselves freely and are regularly harassed,” it added. Jebali and the group of six so-called “Zarzis Internet-users” were among the 1,600 prisoners who received a presidential pardon, on 25 February 2006. Jebali, whose publication Al Fajr, is the organ of the Islamist movement An Nahda, has been in jail since 1991. He was sentenced to one year in prison for defamation after publishing an article by lawyer Mohammed Nuri calling for the military courts to be abolished. On 28 August 1992, he was sentenced to 16 years in prison for “belonging to an illegal organisation” and “wanting to change the character of the state”. The conduct of his trial was a disgrace, in terms of international standards. The members of the Zarzis group were sentenced in April 2004 to 19 years and three months in prison for "forming a gang with the objective of planning bombings, theft and stocking explosives”. Their sentence was reduced in December 2004 to 13 years. More than 15 years ago, Reporters Without Borders set up a system of “sponsorship” that encouraged the international media to support an imprisoned journalist. More than 200 media worldwide support a colleague in this way, regularly calling on the authorities in question to release the journalist and publicising the plight of their imprisoned colleague so that he or she is not forgotten. ------------- Create your blog with Reporters without borders: www.rsfblog.org