90% of Tunisia Journalists on Strike to Protest Pressures
Tunisian journalists went on strike Tuesday to protest pressures by the authorities, after a reporter was arrested for accusing the public prosecutor of fabricating evidence against a cameraman.
The national union of Tunisian journalists (SNJT), which called the action, said it was observed by more than 90 percent of its members.
Hundreds of journalists, politicians and activists gathered outside the union's headquarters in Tunis to support the strikers.
"Freedom, freedom for the Tunisian press," and "Press freedom, independent judiciary," were among the slogans chanted by the 250 protesters.
The SNJT's secretary general, Mongi Khadraoui, accused Tunisian national radio, which is suspected of colluding with the ruling Islamist party Ennahda, of trying to break ranks.
"There was an attempt to disrupt the strike at the national radio, by using external collaborators, but it failed because the technicians refused to cooperate with them," Khadraoui told Agence France Presse.
Earlier, the country's newspapers had all run with headlines announcing the strike.
It comes a day after journalist Zied el-Heni was freed on bail following three days in custody, in the latest legal action of its kind, which has stoked fears that the authorities are rolling back Tunisia's hard-won freedom of expression.
"Tunisian journalists are sick and tired, but they are not giving up," Le Temps newspaper announced on its front page, with Le Quotidien daily proclaiming that "The battle for freedom of expression rages."
"They can stifle freedom, they can restore the rule of terror insidiously, but the warning shots of revolt will be heard," warned La Presse.
Radio stations only broadcast information related to the general strike, as requested by the national journalists union.
The official TAP news agency also said it would offer a "minimum service, only covering events of extreme importance."
Heni was placed in pre-trial detention on Friday for accusing the public prosecutor of fabricating evidence implicating cameraman Mourad Meherzi in an egg-throwing attack on a minister last month.
The cameraman spent three weeks in prison before being released on bail.
Heni's detention, which follows the prosecution of other journalists, media organizations and artists, angered the country's unions and journalists.
"It's a strike to defend freedom -- freedom of the press and freedom of expression, which were the most important gains of the revolution," Heni told Agence France Presse.
"The citizens and NGOs who have come here feel that the threat to press freedom is a threat to their own freedom," he added.
Many journalists accuse the ruling Islamists of tightening press freedom and seeking to control the editorial policies of public media, especially by appointing compliant directors.
Ennahda, the judiciary and police have also been repeatedly accused by the opposition and civil society groups of trying to stifle freedom of expression won in the 2011 revolution that sparked the Arab Spring.
Two rappers were convicted at the end of August and sentenced to 21-month jail terms over songs deemed to be defamatory towards the police force.
Media rights in Tunisia are theoretically governed by two decrees adopted after the revolution, designed to guarantee press freedom and regulate audiovisual media.
But the public prosecution continues to rely extensively on the penal code inherited from the ousted regime of Zine El Abidine Ben Ali and still in force, under which press offences can be punished by jail terms.
Source: Agence France Presse
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