Samir Sassi was arrested on the evening of January 3, without the reasons for the arrest being known at this time. The Qatari channel officially closed its premises in Tunis in July 2021.
On the evening of January 3, Tunisian security forces arrested a journalist from the local office of the Qatari television channel Al Jazeera, the director of this office told AFP. “Our colleague Samir Sassi was arrested after security forces searched his home and seized his computer, his phone, and those of his wife and children,” explained Lotfi Hajji.
The official said he did not know where this fifty-year-old Tunisian journalist was taken or the reasons for his arrest. “Security forces have not communicated to his family or himself the reasons for his arrest, and lawyers are seeking to know where he is being held,” he added.
The office of Al Jazeera, a television channel based in Qatar, has been officially closed since the coup by which President Kaïs Saïed granted himself full powers on July 25, 2021. No official explanation was provided for this closure and the channel’s journalists were authorized to continue working.
On January 1, another Tunisian journalist Zied Heni was placed under arrest warrant pending a trial scheduled for January 10. He is accused of having “harmed the person” of the Minister of Commerce, Kalthoum Ben Rejeb, during a radio program that he regularly hosts. He has been well known since his active participation in the Revolution which brought down dictator Zine El Abidine Ben Ali in January 2011 and kicked off the Arab Spring throughout the region.
International concerns
Around twenty journalists are currently the subject of prosecution in Tunisia, two of whom are in detention. The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) denounced this week the arrest of Zied Heni carried out under “decree 54” which punishes with a prison sentence of up to 10 years those accused of disseminating “false news “.
At the end of June, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Türk, expressed “his deep concern” about attacks on freedoms in Tunisia, in particular freedom of the press.
