In Tunisia, press freedom erodes amid security fears - Committee to Prot... 6 of 21 https://cpj.org/reports/2015/10/in-tunisia-press-freedom-erodes-amid-sec... Military Barracks, where he was lined up with terrorist suspects and threatened with arrest. Mbarki was released the same day. He still faces charges, although no date has been set for a hearing. Concerns over abuse of laws were exacerbated by parliament’s approval in late July of sweeping anti-terror legislation that provides a broad de�nition for terrorist crimes and allows the death penalty for those convicted. The death penalty is constitutionally permissible in Tunisia, but no one has been hanged in the country since 1991. The anti-terrorism law also allows for prison sentences of up to �ve years for a person found to have praised a terrorist act or a person connected to it. Press freedom advocates fear the law will be used to silence all critics of the government. “Press freedom today is constantly threatened by new legislation that the government introduces in the name of protecting of national security,” Mahmoud Dhaouadi, the president of the independent Tunis Center for Press Freedom, told CPJ. The center was founded shortly after the 2011 revolution to defend press freedom and journalists’ rights. 1/27/2025, 12:23 PM