Journalists tell CPJ how Tunisia's tough new constitution curbs their access to informa... - 1 views
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CPJ could not meet with Hajji at the Al-Jazeera office because it has remained closed since police raided the bureau on July 26, 2021, confiscating all broadcasting equipment and forcing all staff to leave the building. The raid came less than 24 hours after Tunisia President Kais Saied fired Prime Minister Hichem Mechichi and suspended parliament, granting himself sole executive power. A new constitution, approved by a largely boycotted voter referendum nearly a year later, on July 25, 2022, codified Saied’s nearly unchecked power, upending the checks and balances between the president, prime minister, and parliament provided by the 2014 constitution.
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at least four journalists have been arrested, and two were sentenced to several months in prison by military courts. Many others have been attacked by security forces while covering protests.
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“We found that 2022 was one of the worst years in terms of press freedom violations since we began monitoring them six years ago,” Khawla Chabbeh, coordinator of the documentation and monitoring unit at the National Syndicate of Tunisian Journalists (SNJT), a local trade union, told CPJ in a meeting. On July 25, 2022, the day of the constitutional referendum, “we monitored the most violations against journalists that has occurred in a single day,”
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