In Tunisia, press freedom erodes amid security fears - Committee to Prot... 4 of 21 https://cpj.org/reports/2015/10/in-tunisia-press-freedom-erodes-amid-sec... ● A hotel window shattered by gun�re. Since the terror attack in Sousse in June, the Tunisian government has introduced legislation that could be abused to restrict the press. (AFP/Kenzo Tribouillard) But today, journalists say that instead of implementing the law, the government resorts to the harsher penal code, which allows for imprisonment for crimes related to publishing, including defamation, slander, or libel. Decree 115 does not allow for imprisonment for these crimes, but instead imposes �nes as the penalty. “One of the main sources of concern among Tunisian journalists and freedom of expression advocates stems from the continuous trend to use the very restrictive penal code to drag reporters to courts for doing their job, instead of the rather protective Decree 115/2011 on the Press, Printing and Publishing,” Kamel Labidi, an independent journalist and press freedom advocate and CPJ’s former representative in Middle East and North Africa, told CPJ. In one example, blogger Yassine Ayari was arrested in December 2014 in relation to several Facebook posts in which he criticized the country’s former defense minister for weakening military institutions and allegedly failing to act on intelligence information about militant attacks. Under the Code of Military Justice, he was charged and convicted of “defaming the army” and sentenced in January to one year in prison, a penalty that was reduced to six months on appeal. He was released after serving half of his reduced sentence, following an international campaign on his behalf. 1/27/2025, 12:23 PM