Committee to Protect Journalists (New York)
Joel Campagna
24 September 2008
analysis
New York — A special report on Tunisia fom the Committee to Protect Journalists
Tunisia wants you to believe it is a progressive nation that protects human rights. It is, in fact, a police state that aggressively silences anyone who challenges President Ben Ali.
A large photo of President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali smiled assuredly from the whitewashed façade of Sfax Prison, where Slim Boukhdhir was serving a one-year jail term. Officially, the 37-year-old journalist was behind bars for insulting a police officer at a checkpoint in Sfax, Tunisia’s second largest city. But in the Orwellian reality of this sunny North African nation, Boukhdhir’s incarceration had little to do with disrespecting police and everything to do with offending the man in the photo.
Boukhdhir, a one-time arts and culture writer with the pro-government press, did what few Tunisian journalists dare: He criticized Ben Ali and his family members, who dominate political and economic life in Tunisia, a Mediterranean country of 10 million. Boukhdhir’s freelance pieces, published online and for foreign publications, accused Ben Ali of nepotism such as funneling state money to a private school run by a niece. Boukhdhir quickly attracted the attention of the authorities. He was dismissed from his day job at the newspaper Akhbar al-Jumhuriyya under government pressure, was refused a passport, and on one occasion was assaulted by secret police in downtown Tunis shortly after writing an online piece criticizing the business practices of Ben Ali’s son-in-law. Undeterred, Boukhdhir kept writing.
So, in November 2007, the Ben Ali government sent him a stronger message. As the journalist headed from Sfax to Tunis after being told he could at last collect his passport, police stopped his cab outside the city and ordered him out of the car. The officers accused Boukhdhir of insulting them—a charge the writer vigorously denied—and then took him to a police station where they punched him repeatedly in the head and accused him of being an American agent, the journalist told CPJ.
The government said Boukhdhir’s arrest had nothing to do with journalism. A week later, after a farcical trial, he was convicted of “insulting a public employee” and refusing to hand over identification to a police officer. A witness told Boukhdhir’s family that police falsified his statements to incriminate the journalist. The judge at Boukhdhir’s trial prohibited the government’s witnesses from being cross-examined. The one-year sentence was not only the maximum allowed by law, it was unheard of for such an offense, defense lawyers said.
“They sent him to prison in order to terrorize him,” said human rights lawyer Mohammed Abbou, himself jailed in 2005 for online articles criticizing Ben Ali. Following an intensive international campaign by journalists and press freedom groups, including CPJ, Tunisian authorities released Boukhdhir in July, citing good behavior, but his imprisonment illustrates the harsh and elaborate measures Tunisia’s government uses to stifle media dissent while trying to insulate itself from international criticism.
Known across the world for its stunning beaches and tourist locales, Tunisia quietly operates a police state at home. The print press does not criticize the president and is largely paralyzed by self-censorship. The few critical voices who do write on the Internet, for foreign publications, and for low-circulation opposition weeklies are regularly harassed and marginalized by the Tunisian authorities.
Tunisia’s press code outlines an array of coverage restrictions—including outright bans on offending the president, disturbing public order, and publishing what the government deems “false news.” While such laws have been used to prosecute journalists over the years, authorities prefer to use more subtle tactics to keep those voices in check, a CPJ investigation found. They control the registration of print media and licensing of broadcasters, refusing permission to critical outlets. They control the distribution of government subsidies and public sector advertising, thus wielding an economic weapon. Outspoken newspapers are subject to confiscation by police. Critical online news sites, those belonging to international rights groups, and the popular video-sharing site YouTube are blocked by the government.
Independent journalists, some of whom double as human rights activists, have also been targets of harassment. Their phone lines are cut, they receive anonymous threats, they are placed under police surveillance, they are denied the right to travel outside the country, and even their movements inside the country have been curtailed. Those who exceed the authorities’ acceptable boundaries for criticism are targeted with harsher measures such as imprisonment or violent attack. In one notorious 2005 case, Christophe Boltanski of the French daily Libération was pepper sprayed, beaten, and stabbed by four unidentified men in the highly patrolled diplomatic quarter of Tunis. The attack came just days before a U.N.-sponsored summit on the Internet—and right after Boltanski wrote an article describing persecution of human rights activists. In strikingly similar circumstances, Tunisian journalist Riad Ben Fadhel was wounded in a 2000 drive-by shooting outside his home in Carthage—a spot within miles of the presidential palace, one of the most secure areas in the country. Days before, he had written an article for Le Monde urging Ben Ali to step down after his term expired.
Tunisia and Morocco have jailed more journalists than any other nation in the Arab world since 2002. Tunisian authorities have used charges unrelated to journalism as a way to protect themselves from international scrutiny. (Such charges extend beyond journalism. In February, authorities imprisoned comedian Hedi Ould Baballah on what were widely viewed as trumped-up drug charges after he imitated Ben Ali in an unflattering skit.) “There are a lot of invisible, indirect pressures,” said one veteran Tunisian journalism teacher, who spoke only on condition of anonymity. “There are no official orders to close papers down or jail journalists. But you ask yourself, where is the independent press?”
Internationally, the government employs an aggressive public relations strategy. The regime provides expense-paid junkets to regional journalists to cover official events such as the annual commemoration of the November 1987 coup that brought Ben Ali to power, journalists told CPJ. The Cairo-based Arab Network for Human Rights Information (ANHRI) reported in 2007 that Egyptian journalists were paid to produce stories praising Ben Ali’s “democratic reforms” and “leadership skills.”
Authorities aggressively counter criticism at international forums by recruiting “spoilers.” In September 2007, one such group sought to dominate the discussion at a Johns Hopkins University event featuring journalist and human rights activist Sihem Bensedrine. When criticism is published in international newspapers, government spokespeople respond swiftly. “Since President Ben Ali's accession to power in 1987, Tunisia has implemented a progressive but irreversible reform process aiming at anchoring democracy, strengthening the rule of law, and promoting and protecting human rights,” wrote Taoufik Chebbi, press counselor to the Tunisian embassy in Washington, in a letter to the St. Paul Pioneer Press that followed a CPJ account of press freedom abuses. Chebbi said reforms have “spectacularly changed” the political landscape.
Those changes, however, do not include direct engagement with those critical of the government’s record. Top officials, from Prime Minister Mohamed Ghannouchi to Interior Minister Rafik Belhaj Kacem, ignored numerous requests from CPJ to meet in Tunisia in June and July to discuss press freedom abuses.
Seen as a bulwark against Islamist militancy in North Africa, Ben Ali enjoys strong relations with the United States and Europe. The U.S. State Department and President George W. Bush have occasionally taken the government to task for its human rights record, but Tunisia is a trusted partner in the U.S. war on terrorism and has impressed U.S. supporters with its economic growth, support for women's rights, and political stability. Many of its U.S. supporters are members of Congress, particularly those serving on the recently formed Tunisia Caucus, which is tasked with boosting bilateral relations. The Tunisian government regularly welcomes Congressional delegations to the sunny capital of Tunis. As members of Congress push for closer U.S.-Tunisian ties, they typically remain silent about Tunisia's poor human rights and press freedom record while allowing Tunisia’s state-controlled press to exploit their visits for propaganda.
Be the first to Write a Comment!
AllAfrica aggregates and indexes content from over 125 African news organizations, plus more than 200 other sources, who are responsible for their own reporting and views. Articles and commentaries that identify allAfrica.com as the publisher are produced or commissioned by AllAfrica.
