Tunisian journalist subjected to judicial onslaught-protest

Reporters Without Borders (Reporters Sans Frontières) has vehemently protested at a judicial onslaught against Tunisian journalist Abdallah Zouari, who has been sentenced on appeal to a total prison sentence of 13 months. « One wonders what the Tunisian authorities will come up with next to try to break this journalist, who has already served 11 years in prison », said Robert Ménard, secretary-general of Reporters Without Borders. « The Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali government is continuing its tactic of gagging the press. The regime is happy to organize media events, even to host the world summit on the information society in 2005, entrusting its organization to a former head of special services known for its use of torture » he said, « But at the same time it stamps down on freedom of information ». Zouari, a journalist with the unofficial Islamist newspaper Al Fajr, was sentenced on 18 July to four months in prison for libel. The owner of a cybercafe had lodged a complaint against him over a row that broke out after she refused him access to the Internet. His appeal hearing that was due to be held on 24 September was postponed at the request of his lawyers to 8 October. Zouari had already been sentenced at an earlier hearing on 29 August to nine months in prison for « failing to obey an administrative order » after he was arrested by plain-clothes police officers at Ben Guerdane market. Under house arrest since his release from prison on 6 June 2002 after 11 years in prison, Zouari had been ordered not to leave the Governorate of Mednine. In fact Ben Guerdane is within the governorate. The two appeal hearings both upheld the earlier sentences, leaving Zouari facing a total prison term of 13 months. The journalist's lawyers now have ten days to decide whether to take the case to a higher appeal court.