Tunisia arrests two journalists in one week

Two journalists added to scores of colleagues and people who have been arrested for expressing dissent, in a trend that worries rights defenders.

After Zied El Heni was detained pending his trial, Al Jazeera journalist Samir Sassi was arrested by an anti-terrorism unit of the national guard, the Tunisian Journalism Union said.

Security forces took Sassi to an unknown destination without telling his family why he was arrested, the Union and Al Jazeera Tunis bureau chief Lotfi Hajji said.

El Heni was arrested and detained on 28 December, following critical comments on Trade Minister Kalthoum Ben Rejeb in a broadcast on the private radio station IFM.

His detention was described by rights defenders as part of a crackdown on independent journalists and dissent since President’s Kais Saied power grab in 2021.

In 2023, 30 journalists were arrested in Tunisia, according to the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ).

In an open letter to Saied published on Thursday, the IFJ expressed its “deepest concern at the frequent imprisonment of journalists, in total contravention of the provisions of the Tunisian constitution in respect of freedom of expression and the media.”

Last summer, the UN human rights chief, Volker Türk, said he was “deeply concerned” about the crackdown on media in Tunisia, with vaguely worded legislation used to criminalize criticism.

Seventeen journalists in Tunisia currently face trial, according to local media.

Heni and some other journalists have been prosecuted under the provisions of decree 54, which punishes those accused of spreading “false news” with a prison sentence of up to 10 years.

The legislation “is being used to silence journalists and opponents of the president,” Anthony Bellanger, the general secretary of the IFJ, said earlier this week, accusing the Tunisian government of “attacking journalists”.