2009 election campaign in Tunisia for the incumbent President and his Constitutional Democratic Rally party. Photo: Sihem Bensedrine

Although freedom of speech is guaranteed by the Tunisian Constitution, this is far from the reality for Tunisian media. Harassment of project workers were part of the daily experience in the IMS-supported project to monitor media coverage during the election campaign

Helle Nordberg, IMS 

Osama Al-Habahbeh, International Media Support (IMS) describes the harassment and censorship faced by those working with media after spending a week in the country in the run-up to multi-party elections on 25 October.

Police surveillance and searches

Constant police surveillance, body searches and groundless arrests. These are some of the daily hardships faced by a team of 20 media monitors in Tunis monitoring Tunisian print and electronic media coverage of the elections which took place on 25 October. The result of the elections was an overwhelming victory for President Ben Ali who entered his fifth term in office with 89,62 per cent of the votes to his party, Constitutional Democratic Rally.

Osama Al-Habahbeh, Programme Coordinator for IMS travelled to Tunisia in the run-up to the elections to support the work of a team of young journalists and students selected to monitor Tunisian media’s coverage of the elections with support from International Media Support.

Osama Al-Hababeh explains:

- Obtaining an overview of how all national media covered an election period is crucial to establishing how freely and professionally the media work in a particular country.

- The objective with media monitoring is to establish whether the coverage was fair and balanced and to actively engage civil society and media professionals in a debate on how to secure this, he emphasises.

The monitoring of Tunisian media is being carried out in close collaboration with two local partners, the National Council for Liberties in Tunisia, the Association for Tunisian Women (ATFD) and the Tunisian Human Rights League (LTDH) who are in charge of selecting, training and carrying out the media monitoring between 1 October and 30 November 2009.

Monitoring marred by obstacles

- So far, the entire process of media monitoring has unfortunately been marred by obstacles, Osama Al-Hababeh says.

- On the fifth day of training our 20 media monitors, the trainer from the NGO Osservatoria di Pavia was expelled from Tunisia with immediate effect. To my knowledge this is the first time an EU citizen has been thrown out without an explanation.

- Also, in the week I resided in Tunis prior to the election, police had surrounded the offices used by the media monitors and searched them as they arrived and left work. Two members of the monitoring team were arrested, but released again later the same day. Needless to say, these are intimidating conditions to work under.

- The harassment is taking place because the authorities are concerned about the documentation that will surface from the media monitoring showing that the media have not behaved objectively during the elections, he adds.  

97 per cent of coverage dedicated to incumbant President’s campaign

Preliminary findings of the media monitoring were presented at a sparsely attended press conference in Tunis on the eve of election day hosted by the Association for Tunisian Women. Only opposition media and international press were present.

The findings show that 97 per cent of the coverage concerned the incumbent President’s campaign – and that the President’s wife played a decisive role in her husband’s campaign as his campaign coordinator.

Only three per cent of media coverage had been dedicated to opposing candidates of the serving President.

Fear of repercussions

According to the Chairwoman of the Association for Tunisian Women, Ms. Ms. Sanaa Ben Achour, journalists on independent newspapers abstain from covering opposition candidates due to fear of repercussions such as being excluded from future government news and events, having their newspaper shut down and being arrested.

The day after the press conference about the preliminary findings of media monitoring, Osama Al-Hababeh looked through newspapers in search of coverage.

- While the oppositional newspapers did cover the findings, the biggest state-controlled newspaper in Tunisia had dedicated an entire page to slandering the local partner organisations and specific people by name working with the media monitoring project, he said.

State of the media

According to the latest press freedom index published by Freedom House in October 2009, Tunisia occupies the 175^th place of 195 countries on the Press Freedom Index.  Tunisia’s print media include eight major dailies, with two owned by the government and two owned by the ruling party. The state-run Tunisian Radio and Television Establishment (ERTT) operates two national TV channels and several radio networks.

According to Freedom House, the Press Law in Tunisia criminalizes defamation, and those who violate the law can be imprisoned and fined. Offensive statements about the president carry prison sentences of up to five years.

A report with the findings of Tunisian media’s coverage of the elections will be available on this website in December.