There have been numerous assaults and harassment of journalists by security forces, politicians and officials in recent years–with June alone seeing 18 assaults, and May seeing 13, according to the National Union of Tunisian Journalists (SNJT). However, in the days since mass protests began on July 25 and President Kais Saied subsequently announced exceptional measures concentrating powers under him, there has been a spike in such harassment.
On September 23, journalist Mohamed Yassine Jelassi, a member of Nawaat’s team, was elected president of the National Union of Tunisian Journalists (SNJT) for a three-year term. The association’s new executive committee is composed of nine members, including three women. With remarkable youth participation and a decent amount of female participation, the new committee reflects changes that have marked the sector within a tumultuous socio-political backdrop.
“The answer is Tunisia.” That’s what Egyptians say when they talk about a solution to their political crisis and their hopes for democracy at home. It is not only about the possibility of exporting the so-called Tunisian political exception to the Arab region. It also expresses a desire to tap into the dynamism of the professional syndicates, trade unions, and civil society organizations that make up the political landscape in Tunisia and have come to exercise the power of oversight and consultation with the authorities. The National Syndicate of Tunisian Journalists (Syndicat National des Journalistes Tunisiens, or SNJT) is one of these professional syndicates with growing weight and influence.
On October 14, journalists and women’s association members put their heads and pens together to draft a Declaration of Principles on Media Coverage and Journalistic Practices concerning Violence against Women. The same day, Alaa Chebbi is denounced by activists for “violating press laws” and “normalizing violence against women and little girls […] just to make a buzz.”
In seamless consistency with the government’s response to the Bardo and Sousse attacks in March and June, official discourse, superficial security measures, and the actions of security forces since last Tuesday’s tragedy reflect the absence of a comprehensive counterterrorism strategy and have kept alive the notion that effective security requires the relinquishing of certain rights and liberties.
In this extremely polarized electoral context, how did the media frame the public discussion and shaped the public opinion? A very bad role, if one believes the 3rd report of Independent High Authority for Audio-Visual Communication (Haica) on the political pluralism, which points the partiality of the audio-visual coverage of the presidential campaigns. Furthermore, the press took a dangerous turn when being engulfed in shifting sands of propaganda and voluntary complicity. But these repetitions seem to worry neither the politicians, nor the journalists.
In Tunisia, there is a great deal of skepticism regarding the competency and «responsible governance» of the interim government in juxtaposition with Tunisia’s international image as the ‘sole democracy in the Arab world’ as citizens sense that technocrats and politicians are incapable of rising above their own political and electoral trajectories to synchronise a unified, coordinated national response to aggression that is tantamount to a Palestinian holocaust.
On Saturday, the National Union of Tunisian Journalists, with support from the Union of Culture and Information, organized a general press strike held on September 17 to “oppose attacks against journalists from authorities who are desperate to treat journalists as criminals on the basis of repressive laws,” according to a press statement.
An open letter, issued Monday 25 March, to Tunisian President Marzouki, Speaker Ben Jaafar and Premier Larayed, in which the National Syndicate of Tunisian Journalists (SNJT), the National Authority to Reform Information and Communication (INRIC) and the General Syndicate of Culture and Information…
The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) today protested to the Tunisian government over the action of police who laid siege […]
Curieux paradoxe, l’adjectif « lâche » a aussi un sens….propre ! Il signifie : méprisable, abject, infâme. Mais il a, […]
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