Reporters Without Borders outraged at new jail term for journalist

Abdallah Zouari's appeal against a four-month jail sentence for defamation was heard on 24 September by a court in Mednine (southern Tunisia). The verdict will be announced on 8 October, when his second appeal will be heard, against a nine-month prison sentence for "disobeying an administrative order." 29.08.03 Reporters Without Borders denounced a new nine-month jail sentence passed on journalist Abdallah Zouari, who has already spent 11 years in prison, as "grotesque and disgraceful." "The abuses against him by the Tunisian legal system are continuing, unsurprisingly under President Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali's authoritarian regime," said Reporters Without Borders secretary-general Robert Ménard. Zouari was sentenced on 29 August by a local court in Zarzis for "failing to obey an administrative decision" and had been on hunger-strike since his arrest on 17 August in the market place in Ben Guerdane (500 km south of Tunis). The 46-year-old journalist, who worked for Al Fajr, an unofficial Islamist publication, was released on 6 June last year after 11 years in prison and ordered to live in the southeastern town of Zarzis, far from his family in Tunis. His lawyers said the order banned him from leaving Médnine province (which includes Zarzis) and that he has been in the province when arrested by plainclothes police. Zouari said police had harassed him and continually tried to restrict his movements. On 18 July this year, he was sentenced to four months in prison for "defamation" after complaining about being barred from using a cybercafé in Zarzis.