Prominent Tunisian reporter Zied Heni was detained on Friday after writing an article criticising the judiciary, according to his \u200blawyer, a move the journalists’ union said was part of \u200ca broader crackdown on free speech.<\/p>\n
The Tunisian public prosecutor ordered the arrest, lawyer Nafaa Laribi told Reuters. There was no immediate statement from the prosecutor’s \u200boffice or details of any charge.<\/p>\n
Rights groups warn of growing \u200battempts to stifle remaining independent voices since President Kais \u2060Saied dissolved the elected parliament in 2021 and began ruling by \u200bdecree.<\/p>\n
In 2022, President Kais Saied also dissolved the Supreme Judicial Council \u200band dismissed dozens of judges, a move the opposition said undermined judicial independence and turned it into a body receiving direct instructions.<\/p>\n
Saied denies the accusations, saying \u200bhe fought corruption in the judiciary and that the courts \u200bare now independent.<\/p>\n
The head of Tunisian journalists\u2019 union, Zied Dabbar, said Heni’s detention was “arbitrary \u200cand … \u2060another step aimed at intimidating journalists”.<\/p>\n
Free speech initially flourished following the 2011 uprising that toppled autocrat Zine El Abidine Ben Ali and led to the “Arab Spring”.<\/p>\n
But critics say Saied’s accumulation of power in \u200b2021 and decrees \u200bhe has \u2060issued since then have dismantled democratic safeguards and enabled the authorities to pursue many journalists.<\/p>\n
The leaders of \u200bTunisia’s main opposition parties have been jailed in the \u200blast \u2060three years, along with dozens of politicians, journalists, activists and businessmen, on charges of conspiring against state security, money laundering and corruption.<\/p>\n
Saied says \u2060he will \u200bnot be a dictator and that \u200bfreedoms are guaranteed in Tunisia, but that no one is above the law, regardless \u200bof their name or position.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":23505,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"news-type":[],"class_list":["post-32958","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"President Kais Saied also dissolved the Supreme Judicial Council \u200band dismissed dozens of judges.","published_date":"","news_description":"President Kais Saied also dissolved the Supreme Judicial Council \u200band dismissed dozens of judges.","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/32958","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/32958\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":32959,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/32958\/revisions\/32959"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23505"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32958"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=32958"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}