On the stabbing of a journalist in Tunisia

Reporters Without Borders said yesterday there was an 11 November 2005 attack on visiting correspondent Christophe Boltanski, of the French daily "Liberation," who was badly beaten and stabbed by four unidentified assailants in an area of Tunis near his hotel where there are always large numbers of police.

"In view of the circumstances of the attack, in which police looked on without reacting, we suspect the assailants were members of the Tunisian security services, and that it was a deliberate act of intimidation targeted by the Tunisian government at foreign journalists who still dare to take an interest in the deplorable human rights situation in Tunisia," the press freedom organization said.