RAP 21 The African Press Network for the 21st Century Newsletter No 25/2005 17.11.05

Journalists have been violently attacked and harassed in the lead-up to the UN World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) taking place in Tunisia this week. In response, the Tunisian Monitoring Group (TMG), of which WAN is a member, cancelled its roundtable on Freedom of Expression set to take place as an official WSIS event.

The United Nations World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) begins on 16 November. The event, which among other subjects addresses freedom of expression on the internet and access to information, will take place amidst severe abuses of press freedom on the ground in Tunis. In response to the serious abuses against journalists in recent days the Tunisia Monitoring Group (TMG), has decided to cancel its roundtable on freedom of expression, which was set to take place on 16 November.

The TMG instead will take the opportunity to use the event as a platform to protest in the strongest possible terms the abuse against journalists and freedom of expression currently taking place and draw attention again to how unsuitable it is to hold a UN event in a country with no respect for freedom of expression.

Among other events, journalists and civil society activists planning a Citizens' Summit on the Information Society were assaulted, abused and detained briefly on 14 November as attempted to hold a preparatory meeting at the Goethe Institute in Tunis. Omar Mestiri, Director of the online magazine Kalima and a founder member of the National Council for Freedom in Tunisia (CNLT) was harassed and intimidated by plain clothed policemen as soon as he arrived at the site for the meeting. The 30 men in plainclothes also verbally assaulted and harassed Om Zied, the chief editor of the magazine, a publication that investigates corruption, documents attacks on human rights, and highlights the improper operations of the Tunisian legal system. Faced with incessant aggression by the authorities, she left the site. The law enforcement agents also shouted, manhandled, and tried to physically intimidate the on-site Tunisian journalists. CSIS has been organised by local freedom of expression organisations who have been banned from attending the WSIS event. It is supported by international and regional organisations, including members of the TMG.

Other attacks in Tunisia in the lead up to UN Summit include the violent assault of French journalist Christophe Boltanski, who was attacked by several men on the street in Tunis while covering the repression of human rights activists on 11 November. Boltanski, a correspondent for the French daily Libération, was assaulted by four men in the street near his hotel in the embassy district. The attackers blinded him with pepper spray before throwing him to the ground, punching and kicking him. One of the attackers stabbed Boltanski in the lower back during the assault.

Although the journalist called for help in the heavily policed neighbourhood, guards standing outside the nearby Czech Embassy did not intervene. The assailants disappeared after stealing his bag containing a small amount of cash, a USB computer memory stick, a mobile phone and a return air ticket to Paris. The attack took place a day after Libération published Boltanski's report about clashes between police and activists protesting in support of seven hunger strikers campaigning for the release of political prisoners in Tunisia.

In another assault on freedom of expression, Tunisian security forces blocked Belgian TV reporters Marianne Klaric and Jean-Jacques Mathi and human rights lawyer Radia Nasraoui from interviewing representatives of Tunisian NGOs that had organized a meeting in advance of the Summit. The two journalists were preparing a report for Belgian public service TV channel RTBF. At the meeting, security officers wearing civilian clothes grabbed their camera and confiscated a video cassette containing a number of reports that they had previously recorded.

Assaults against human rights activists and journalists in the run up to the opening of the World Summit on Information Society had long been predicted by the TMG. The second report of the TMG, entitled: "Freedom of expression in Tunisia: The Siege Intensifies" was released in September 2005. To read the report, visit http//:www.campaigns.ifex.org/tmg