![]() ![]() Independent radio, including outlets such as Mosaique FM, where El Mekki works, and titles like Nawaat and Inkyfada, still produce responsible journalism. “While the decree-law sets out penalties,” Drareni said, “it does not provide any definition of ‘fake news’ and ‘rumour’.” In this way, the government allows itself the pretext for using the fight against fake news, to “legitimise attacks on press freedom and the right to inform and be informed”, he said. However, it was Article 54 that proved to be among the most significant. ![]() “Tunisia has fallen in this ranking for several reasons,” said Khaled Drareni, RSF’s North African representative, outlining the country’s political environment, including the purges of the president’s opponents and his distinct authoritarian turn. In early May, Reporters Without Borders, also known under its French name Reporters Sans Frontières (RSF), published its latest global ranking in media freedoms, showing a dramatic fall for Tunisia, from 94th – already fairly low down – to 121st place out of the 180 countries surveyed. However, the president’s current authoritarian turn, including the purging of his opponents and critics, as well as his curtailing of media freedoms, has rarely appeared more ominous. Insulting public officials or state institutions, such as the army, has long been punishable by military courts. Lauded, often overseas, as one of the great gains of the revolution, media freedom in Tunisia has often been shaky. La Presse, the country’s state newspaper, recently led with the headline Merci Monsieur Presidente (“thank you sir president”), while the national television channel has been dismissed by the National Syndicate of Tunisian Journalists (SNJT) as a “trivial propaganda mouthpiece that excludes all opposition voices”. In recent months, an explicit supporter of former President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali has been appointed to head the country’s news agency, Tunis Afrique Presse (TAP), with a corresponding shift in output. That’s all.”Īllied to legal penalties for publishing supposed falsehoods online has been the cultural change that took place across much of Tunisia’s mainstream media since President Kais Saied’s dramatic power grab in July 2021. It’s there to shut the mouths of journalists who are critical of the system. ![]() It’s clear that this wasn’t written to combat fake news. Others talk about abuses committed by a minister, and they’re also prosecuted. “When you see the editor of Business News prosecuted for something he published, you’re left thinking, what next? The law itself is about tackling ‘fake news’ on the internet, but the Business News piece wasn’t fake news, it was just opinion. “The main problem is not the article itself, it’s in its application,” El Mekki explains. Lawyers, former politicians and previous members of the electoral commission have all been prosecuted under Article 54, labelled by Amnesty International as “ draconian“. Haythem El Mekki, Tunisian political commentator Īhmed Bahaa El-Din Hamada, a university student, was held under the terms of the article for posting on social media about a protest in his neighbourhood. Journalist Nizar Bahloul, the editor of the online title Business News, has already been charged under Article 54 for a column pointing out the absence of any achievement by the country’s head of government (prime minister) in 13 months in office. Nevertheless, despite his brushes with everyone from religious hardliners to the pre-revolutionary regime of Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, it is the passage of Article 54 – punishing anything online that the government decrees “fake news” and coming with the cultural about-face across much of Tunisia’s national media in the last two years – that has left El Mekki and others like him isolated and closer to arrest than ever. He pauses, thinking: “They’ve also sent ricin to the radio station where I was working.” “I’ve been threatened physically dozens of times,” he adds, before describing the two distinct assassination threats from hardline groups that required police intervention. “I’ve been targeted on a daily basis and on a massive level since the revolution,” he says. Between mouthfuls, he lists the litany of threats and abuse he has received since the country’s 2011 revolution. In a corner, Tunisian political commentator Haythem El Mekki speaks as he eats. Tunis, Tunisia – The back room in the restaurant near Mosaique FM Tunis’s offices is deserted. ![]()
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