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Internet censorship in Tunisia |
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Saturday, 22 February 2003 |
Twenty young men, many of them students, have been arrested in Tunisia for looking at banned websites and allegedly carrying out subversive activities on the Internet. The International Association for Support of Political Prisoners said police were interrogating the men in the capital, Tunis, and refusing family visits.
Lawyers say the arrested men browsed sites including one from the banned Tunisian Islamist Nahda party. The Tunisian Government is believed to censor the Internet more tightly than any other country in the world, with the possible exception of China. The government jailed its first Internet dissident last year for disseminating "false information" on the web. Zouhair Yahyaoui, the founder of satirical website, www.tunezine.com, which gave a space for opposition groups and politicians to air their views, was sentenced to two years in prison.
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