The Tunisian judiciary decided to imprison the journalist and director of the private “Mosaique FM” radio station, Noureddine Boutar, on charges of insulting Tunisian President Kais Saied.
Ayoub Al-Ghadamsi, the lawyer who the National Syndicate of Tunisian Journalists appointed, said that the investigating judge “using the liberal line of Mosaique to offend the highest hierarchy of power and symbols of the state,” is malicious.
Al-Ghadamsi added, “We hoped that the investigating judge would take a courageous decision based on legal data in the file and evidence proving that the accusation was malicious, but this did not happen.”
“There is no sense of safety in the country, as the judiciary does not provide the slightest degree of protection for its citizens and relies on weak security reports that contain false data”, he added.
He pointed out that “using the charge of money laundering was an attempt to cover the main charge, which is the liberal line of Mosaique to offend the highest hierarchy of power.”
Recently, the Tunisian authorities arrested Boutar as part of a campaign of arrests against opposition politicians, a businessman and two judges without clear charges.
The campaign of arrests in Tunisia began with the arrest of businessman Kamal Al-Latif, who has great influence in political circles, in addition to the former leader of the Ennahda movement, Abdel Hamid Al-Jelassi, the political activist Khayam Al-Turki, and two former judges.
The arrests also included the director-general of the private radio station “Mosaique FM” Noureddine Boutar, the former Minister of Justice Noureddine Al-Buhairi, and the lawyer Lazhar Al-Akrami, before including Fawzi Kammoun, the former director of the office of the head of the Ennahda movement.
