Legal organization accuses Tunisia of harassing press freedom

The Tunisian human rights league has stressed that the authorities in Tunisia expanded the harassment campaign against the local mass media and that it mistreats journalists, jail them and censor news reports.

The league explained that the government monitoring covers a large phase of topics ranging between the floods which hit Tunisia by the beginning of this year and criticism of policies conducted by the US President George W. Bush inside and outside, including Iraq.

The only human rights legal organization in Tunisia indicated that the government's control extended even to banning issuance of the pictures of the American Presidential candidate John Kerry in an attempt to please Bush. The chairman of the league Mukhtar al-Tureifi said " Should Kerry wins the elections," it will be evident that the government will impose an embargo on Bush's camp in order to satisfy Kerry."

A special report by the organization said that the government- which is often accused of mistreating political prisoners and beating opposition and censor the press- had ignored the repeated calls by the human rights organizations abroad and from friendly western countries to lift its fist from the press.