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Threats against journalist's family, then wife's car vandalised

The car of freelance journalist Taoufik Ben Brik's wife was vandalised in Tunis yesterday, a week after two plain-clothes policemen went up to him and threatened to target his family.

"The Tunisian authorities have been harassing Ben Brik for years," Reporters Without Borders said. "For a while they seemed to have let up. But now, with less than a year to go to a presidential election, the harassment of journalists has resumed. The government still has not learned to tolerate criticism. Press freedom still is not a reality in Tunisia."

The press freedom organisation wrote to French President Nicolas Sarkozy last week asking him to raise the issue of free expression with President Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali and the other officials he meets during the visit he is due to make to Tunis from 28 to 30 April.

Ben Brik's wife, Azza, told Reporters Without Borders that she filed a complaint against persons unknown after the rear window and side-mirrors of her car were broken yesterday. She also reported that members of her family have been contacted and told that they should convince her to divorce her husband.

"Today they have targeted my car but I am afraid that tomorrow they will target my family," she said. "How far will they go ?"

Ben Brik told Reporters Without Borders that on 16 April he was approached by two plain-clothes policemen who told him to stop criticising the government and warned him that they could "take care" of his family if he did stay quiet until after next year's presidential election.

Ben Brik used to be the Tunis correspondent of the French daily La Croix and the news agencies Infosud and Syfia. Nowadays he writes for Kalima, an online newspaper to which access is blocked within Tunisia, and the Paris-based newspapers Libération and Courrier International.

Topics: Freedom of speech, Freedom of information, Freedom of expression,