|
Freedom of the press
Omar Mestiri in the clutches of the Tunisian regime
Omar Mestiri, a human rights activist and journalist, is currently facing intense harassment from the Tunisian judiciary. His only crime is to have published accurate information...
On 16 August 2007, Omar Mestiri, Chief Editor of the online newspaper ‘Kalima’ and a leading figure in the Tunisian democratic resistance movement, was summoned to appear before a court in Tunis.
He was charged with defamation under the Press Code following a lawsuit lodged by one Mohammed Baccar.
The lawsuit is based on an article published in Kalima on 5 September 2006, in which Omar Mestiri gave an account of the reintegration of Mohammed Baccar, a lawyer close to the regime who had been struck off from the Bar after having been condemned for fraud and forgery.
The charges are maintained despite the fact that Kalima’s website is blocked in Tunisia, and that the veracity of the facts in the article was at no time disputed.
In the course of an interrogation carried out on 29 March, Omar Mestiri refused to reveal the sources that allowed him to convey this information.
He maintained this position during the first court hearing on 2 August.
He is facing between one and three years imprisonment.
Such eagerness to judge what should be a simple case of press offence in the middle of the holiday season raises suspicions as to the real motives of the Tunisian judiciary towards a well-known and respected human rights activist.
The Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Network will send the lawyer Houcine Bardi to Tunis to monitor the developments and the lawfulness of the trial and is already calling for the case to be dropped immediately, considering that Omar Mestiri is only doing his job as a journalist.
It also urges the Tunisian government to respect freedom of expression in all its form and to put an end to its policy of harassment of free and independent journalists and to the prohibition of Kalima’s website.
08/15/2007
*Omar Mestiri is a member of the Conseil National pour les Libertés en Tunisie (CNLT), a member organisation of the Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Network
|
