Radio Kalima journalist Zakia Dhifawi was arrested by six plain-clothes Tunisian policemen Tuesday afternoon as she was leaving a trade union building in Tunis and was held for an hour at the Charles de Gaulle Street police station, where she was subjected to humiliating treatment. Kalima trainee journalist Faten Hamdi was meanwhile threatened with prosecution yesterday, three days after she was briefly arrested.
“It is intolerable that the staff of Kalima, Tunisia’s sole independent radio station, are being subjected to the same kind of harassment to which all independent journalists are exposed,” Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) said. “After closing the radio station’s premises and confiscating its equipment, the police are now clearly targeting its staff with the aim of making their lives so difficult that they leave Tunis and stop working as journalists.”
After being taken to the police station, Dhifawi was put in a room on her own. Then two women police officers came, forcibly undressed her and subjected her to a body search. Before releasing her, the police warned her that she could be subjected to the same kind of “punishment” every day as long as she stayed in Tunis and continued to work for Kalima.
Dhifawi had been questioned by police for three hours the day before (February 10) about her work for Kalima. On that occasion, she was threatened with being prosecuted and imprisoned if she did not stop.
A writer who also works occasionally for the opposition weekly El Mouwatinoun, Dhifawi spent 102 days in prison last year after covering and participating in a march in support of the protests in the Gafsa mining region. Since then, she has not been able to resume her work as a teacher in Kairouan, 120km south of Tunis.
Meanwhile, members of the political police Tuesday told Hamdi, 24, that she would be imprisoned if she continued to work for Kalima. On February 7, she was arrested on Habib Bourguiba Street in Tunis and was held for three hours, during which she was threatened with prosecution.
Three journalists working for the satellite TV station El Hiwar Ettounisi were also arrested on February 7 and threatened with prosecution if they did not abandon their journalist activities.
