Express procedure for Zied El-Heni, who was arrested on January 1 following comments deemed offensive against a minister. The former director of the daily Essahafa, who was also mayor of Carthage in 2011, was released on the evening of January 10 but received a six-month suspended prison sentence.
Tunisian journalist Zied El-Heni was released Wednesday evening and received a six-month suspended prison sentence indicated his lawyer. He had been placed under an arrest warrant on January 1, awaiting his trial. He was accused of having “harmed the person” of the Minister of Commerce, Kalthoum Ben Rejeb, during a radio program that he hosts regularly.
Press freedom in danger
Around twenty journalists are currently the subject of prosecution in Tunisia, two of whom are in detention. The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) denounced the arrest of ZiedEl-Heni, carried out under the “Decree 54”, which punishes with a prison sentence of up to ten years those accused of spreading “false news”>.
At the end of June, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Türk, expressed his “deep “concern” in the face of attacks on freedoms in Tunisia, in particular those weighing on the freedom of the press.
