Tunisia jails journalist for six months, Tunisia Crime – Maktoob Business
TUNIS – A Tunisian court on Thursday sentenced a journalist and vocal critic of President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali to six months in prison for assaulting a woman.
Taoufik Ben Brik, 49, had protested his innocence, saying he was the victim of a set-up by the North African country's political police because of his criticism of Ben Ali, re-elected last month for a fifth term after two decades in power.
Ben Brik's lawyer Mokhtar Trifi said the court found the journalist guilty of voluntary physical harm, damaging the goods of others and offense to public morality.
“I am the victim and not the accused in this affair which has been entirely set up by the political police,” Ben Brik told the judge at his trial in Tunis on November 19 before a week's recess for the verdict.
He was arrested on October 29 and charged with physically assaulting a 28-year-old businesswoman.
Reporters Sans Frontieres (RSF – Reporters Without Borders) declared Ben Brik a political prisoner and urging foreign governments to “stop protecting the regime.”
via Tunisia jails journalist for six months, Tunisia Crime – Maktoob Business.
