Police query two Tunisian journalists after controversial program

Tunis, Tunisia – Distinguished Tunisian columnist Haythem El Mekki and radio co-host Elyes Gharbi have been launched by a prosecutor after questioning about their feedback concerning the nation’s highly effective safety forces.

On Monday, the 2 journalists had been questioned at a police station within the El Gorjani space of ​​the capital Tunis as their colleagues and human rights activists protested outdoors.

No date has but been set for his subsequent look. No expenses have been confirmed towards him both. In the interim, each males stay free on bail, pending additional expenses and a potential trial.

The case pertains to a grievance filed by certainly one of Tunisia’s highly effective safety unions over feedback made by El Mekki on Could 15 on the Gharbi Midi Present on Mosaique FM radio.

El Mekki criticized police recruitment strategies following the killing of six individuals, together with two pilgrims, on the El Ghriba synagogue on the island of Djerba by a member of the Nationwide Guard on obligation in early Could.

Privately owned Mosaique FM is among the many most listened to stations in Tunisia, and Midi Present is very standard with its 1.5 million listeners.

“The Midi Present is among the final radio reveals to provide voice and have opposition figures,” stated activist Nessryne Jelalia, who, together with round 100 journalists and human rights defenders, had gathered outdoors the police headquarters in Tunis the place El Mekki and Gharbi had been being detained. disputed

Jelalia stated El Mekki’s first brush with nationwide prominence was some 30 years in the past this month via his involvement in an anti-censorship marketing campaign, and he’s now topic to prosecution on free expression expenses. Of all of the Tunisian on-line bloggers whose exercise helped convey concerning the nation’s revolution, El Mekki is the one one left.

Individuals hearken to him discuss, he stated, “concerning the political state of affairs, concerning the information, and the best way he talks attracts actually massive audiences. He is among the few we now have”.

Jelalia praised El Mekki’s function as a satirist of recent political mores.

Monday’s listening to was the most recent in a rising variety of prosecutions by President Kais Saied and his allies.

Following the arrests of Saied’s political opponents and critics, there was an unprecedented crackdown on dissent throughout the media, and apparently particularly throughout the unbiased radio station the place El Mekki works, Mosaique FM.

In early February, the station’s common supervisor, Noureddine Boutar, was arrested and later charged with cash laundering. Nevertheless, in response to his legal professionals, the “editorial line” of the station and of the Midi Present specifically additionally figured prominently throughout the interrogation.

Final week, one of many station’s regional correspondents, Khalifa Guesmi, was sentenced to 5 years in jail after refusing to disclose the sources of a safety story he had written.

Questions on the way forward for the station circulated extensively among the many crowd gathered in entrance of the police headquarters.