Tunisia
Journalist faces continued harassmentPosted Jan 30 2009
Tunisian journalist Slim Boukhdir continues to face police surveillance since his release from prison last July, according to Reporters Without Borders. In a recent reinforcement in surveillance, “plain-clothes police officers have been closely watching everything he has done for the past few days.” His family is also being kept under surveillance.
On Jan. 19, three police officers followed Boukhdir from an Internet café in a south Tunis suburb to his home, according to Reporters Without Borders. Surveillance was suspended while Boukhdir’s lawyer, Abderraouf el Ayadi, arrived at the house, but resumed upon his departure. Colleagues who visited Boukhdir also confirmed that men in civilian dress were spying on the house.
In May 2007, Boukhdir was harassed for his articles blaming a relative of the president’s wife for an April stampede at a pop concert, which resulted in seven deaths, according to the International Press Institute.
Boukhdir was arrested in November 2007 for “what were widely seen as fabricated charges of insulting a public employee, violating ‘public decency,’ and refusing to hand over identification to police,” according to Menassat, an Arab media Web site. Boukhdir was released in July 2008 after serving eight months of a one-year prison sentence but was again harassed by plain-clothes officers in September 2008, according to Menassat.
Reporters Without Borders called for an immediate halt to these practices. “The Tunisian government cannot go on obstructing the work of journalists like this,” the organization said in a statement.
More information
- Reporters Without Borders
- International Press Institute
- Menassat