Laws restricting freedom of expression should be repealed
A Tunis court sentenced blogger Wajdi Mahouechi to two years in prison on November 12, 2020, for posting a video on Facebook deemed offensive by a court official, said today Human Rights Watch.
31-year-old Mahouechi speaks frequently on matters of general interest. On November 1, he posted a video on his Facebook page denouncing the fact that a Tunisian prosecutor had not ordered the arrest of a Tunisian imam who seemed to justify the murder of people who insult the prophet Muhammad, nor even opened an investigation about him. Instead, Mahouechi himself was prosecuted, for “accusing officials of crimes in the absence of evidence“, “offended others via telecommunications networks ”, as well as“ public slander ”and“ contempt of a public official”. The charges stem from the 2001 Tunisian Criminal Code and Telecommunications Code.
“Tunisia’s legal codes are full of vague laws that authorities exploit to penalize freedom of expression and silence critical voices,” said Eric Goldstein, deputy director of the Middle East and North Africa division at Human Rights Watch. “While Tunisia prides itself on promoting freedom of expression since its 2011 revolution, it regresses the protection of this right.“
The video posted by the imam followed the beheading on October 16 of Samuel Paty, a middle school teacher in France, killed by a Chechen refugee after Paty showed caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad in his classroom as part of a’a course on freedom of expression. The video appears to have been deleted from Facebook later. In his Facebook post on November 1, Mahouechi also criticized the prosecutor for failing to investigate a 2019 complaint he filed against police officers who, he claims, beat him up. Mahouechi used language that could be seen as vulgar while saying he was only insulting this prosecutor and not the judiciary as a whole.
Agents from Hay El Khadra’s Counter-Terrorism and Organized Crime Unit arrested Mahouechi on November 2 and questioned him for at least four hours in the presence of his lawyer, Mohamed Ali Bouchiba. The lawyer is the co-founder of Bloggers Without Chains, an organization made up of volunteer lawyers to defend social media activists and others being sued for their Facebook posts.
Bouchiba told Human Rights Watch that police visited Mahouechi’s family home late at night. “We knew he was going to be arrested,” Bouchiba said. “ The officers took him away barely a day after his video was uploaded. “
According to Bouchiba, Mahouechi told his interrogators that he was not targeting anyone in his status and had only acted as a whistleblower of the imam’s video, with the sole aim of exposing his extremist ideas and terrorism.
The Tunis Court of First Instance convicted Mahouechi for having ” accused public officials of crimes related to their work without providing proof “, a crime punishable by up to two years in prison under Article 128 of the penal code, have “knowingly harmed third parties or disturbed their peace of mind through public telecommunications networks”, under article 86 of the telecommunications code, which provides for a sentence of up to two years in prison and a fine of up to up to 1000 Tunisian dinars (about 300 dollars), of ” public slander “under article 245 of the penal code, and ” contempt of a public official in the exercise of his functions », A crime punishable by one year in prison under Article 125 of the penal code.
“ We are seeing an escalation of prosecutions that remind us of the arrests and trials of bloggers and social media critics in 2017, ” Bouchiba said. “ The pursuits never really stopped. They just slowed down and are now making a comeback. “
Two reports made public by Human Rights Watch, in January and October 2019, documented the prosecution of bloggers and social media activists in Tunisia for their peaceful online comments. As part of these lawsuits, authorities have used defamation, “ dissemination of false information” and “harm to others through telecommunications networks ” laws to prosecute individuals who post on social media. information of a political nature, denounce corruption, or criticize senior officials.
Since 2017, Tunisian courts have sentenced six social media activists to prison for critical comments they made public. The two-year sentence against Mahouechi is the most severe to date pronounced against a blogger for criticism online, noted Bouchiba. Mahouechi is currently serving his sentence in Mornaguia prison in Tunis. His lawyers will appeal the verdict.
” Tunisia has no excuse to prosecute peaceful detractors and intimidate bloggers who attack state authorities,” said Eric Goldstein. “ Parliament should act quickly to amend or repeal laws that are relics of the ousted autocratic regime. “
