Arresting journalists on charges of terrorism: Is Tunisia losing the revolution's gains?

“Twelve security men in civilian clothes broke into the house, confiscated his computer and phone, and arrested him on terrorist charges. He was also accused of supervising a Facebook page, apparently affiliated with Islamists, while Ghassan is a leftist, communist, progressive, and democratic.” This is how Marwa Al-Sharif described the arrest scene of her husband, the Tunisian journalist Ghassan Ben Khalifa.

In a voice dominated by sadness and anger, Al-Sharif told Jusoor Post that her husband “has become a political prisoner because he is a journalist who is annoying to the authorities and is fighting for many causes he believes in, including anti-normalization with Israel and class injustice inside Tunisia.”

Al-Sharif added that “according to the terrorism law, it is forbidden to visit the detainee for 48 hours, but this period was exceeded by 12 hours, and no one was able to visit Ghassan.”

The wife could not hold back her tears as she said, “Even the Human Rights League and the Anti-Torture Authority were prevented from visiting him, in addition to the fact that his place of detention is unknown.”

Amid a recent campaign of arbitrary arrests of Tunisian journalists, journalist and political activist Ghassan Ben Khalifa, founder of the website Enhiaz, was arrested on Tuesday, September 6. The Anti-Terrorism Prosecution also ordered his detention for a period of five days, which can be extended as part of the investigation, before being released Monday, September 12.

The arbitrary arrest, according to press and human rights organizations, was met with widespread rejection and condemnation by civil society and political parties, amid fears of a decline in freedom of the press, expression, and public freedoms indicated by successive arrests in recent months on charges not related to the profession of journalism.

In a statement, the Tunisian Journalists Syndicate denounced “the defense team's recording of numerous procedural and formal violations during the arrest process. It started with raiding Ben Khalifa's house and his parents' house without providing judicial permission, then manipulating him and transferring him throughout the day of his detention between the various security teams and republican agents without hearing him and allowing the defense team to meet him.”

The statements of the Journalists Syndicate were confirmed by Ben Khalifa’s wife, who told Jusoor Post that while inquiring about the reason for his arrest, the security personnel tried to throw her into “technical labyrinths.”

She also announced “organizing a protest stop in front of the Journalists Syndicate, followed by a press conference that Ghassan will attend himself to narrate the facts of his imprisonment.”

“We will not remain silent about the injustice that Ghassan was subjected to, nor about his arrest under the Terrorism Law, even after his release,” she added.

Return of 'terrorism charges'

The referral of a journalist to the Anti-Terrorism Judicial Department is not a precedent. Last March, journalist Khalifa Al Qasimi was arrested under the Terrorism Law for publishing a news item stating the dismantling of a terrorist cell.

Journalist Salah Attia was also arrested last April and charged with “threatening the security of public order and the impartiality of the military establishment” after an intervention on Al-Jazeera channel in which he spoke about “the army's disobedience to the orders of the President of the Republic, Kais Saied.”

In April 2022, journalist Shahrazad Okasha was arrested for a day after criticizing the police and the Ministry of the Interior in a blog post for assaulting her. Another journalist was imprisoned for a week in March 2022 for publishing a story about gunmen.

In turn, journalist Amer Ayyad was arrested for a month in October 2021 on charges of conspiring against state security and conspiring against the head of state.

Threat to press freedom

The press in Tunisia has recently witnessed several cases of restrictions on freedom of expression, including frequent attacks on journalists while performing their duties, bans from working, and the difficulty of obtaining information from official authorities. This raises more than one question about the reality of the media and press in Tunisia in light of the serious threats to freedom of expression.

Tunisia has fallen 21 places in the world press freedom rating for the year 2022. The Reporters Without Borders organization, which issues the rating, attributed this decline to the exceptional measures approved by President Saied on July 25, 2021.

The Tunisian Journalists Syndicate also announced in its annual report on the reality of press freedoms, recording 214 attacks against journalists during 2021.

Freedom of expression and the press remained a major gain for Tunisians after the 2011 revolution that ended the autocratic rule of late President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali and sparked the Arab Spring protests.

The syndicate pointed out that “Ben Khalifa and other journalists, bloggers, activists and human rights defenders are subjected to smear campaigns and electronic threats carried out by pages affiliated with the authority, without the judiciary taking any measures despite the filing of many complaints.” This confirms, according to the syndicate, that “the authority employs the security services and the judiciary and mobilizes them in specific cases without others.”

Speaking to Jusoor Post, the Vice President of the Journalists Syndicate, Amira Mohammad, confirmed that “there are serious threats that indicate a retreat from freedom of expression. The evidence for this is the numerous trials of journalists and bloggers.”

Mohammad pointed out that “the most recorded period of attacks and trials of journalists and deprivation of freedom is the current period in which we went back to the period before the Tunisian revolution on January 14, 2011.”

“The president denies every time that there is a threat to freedom of expression. This is not true, and the evidence is the numerous arrests of journalists, bloggers and activists that we record daily. Criticism is one of the roles of the press, and people should not be targeted based on their positions on the regime,” she said.

The syndicate representative stressed “the need for an effective political will to respect freedom of the press in order to protect freedom of expression.”

She also called for “the enactment of laws that support freedom of the media and guarantee the right of the journalist to work in a safe and sound environment.”