Une Tunisienne condamnée pour la diffusion d’un message sur Facebook

[Al-khiyal]

Tunisia:
Facebook user jailed for spreading rumors liable to disrupt public order

July 7, 2009 -- On Saturday, July 4, 2009, The 8th Criminal Chamber of the Court of First Instance in Tunis has condemned a retired professor, Dr Khedija Arfaoui, to eight months in prison for spreading rumors, on the social networking website Facebook, liable to disrupt public order. Dr Khedija Arfaoui, a feminist retired professor at the Manouba University in Tunis, was accused of spreading a message on Facebook about the rumor of 5 children being abducted from school in Tunisia. Recent rumors that children have been abducted and trafficked in Tunisia have been circulating for some months and have reached epidemic proportions with many parents concerned that their kids will be kidnapped, despite an official denial by Tunisia's Minister of Interior during a press conference.

The rumor has managed to spread throughout the country, especially on the Internet. On Facebook, a popular social networking website in Tunisia with an estimate of 623,000 users, videos and alerts of child abductions have been posted and shared with friends. Dr. Khedija Arfaoui is a Tunisian women’s rights activists and member of the Feminist Association of Tunisian Women for Research and Development and founder of the Association of Development and Protection of the Environment (ADPE)

Some observers, such as blogger Mokhtar Yahyaoui, a former judge who was deprived of office because of his open letter to the Tunisian President condemning the lack of independence of the Tunisian judiciary, believe that the government needs to find a scapegoat for the rumor. Juriste Tunisie, a legal information blog edited by a team of Tunisian jurists who seek to promote communication and dissemination of information about the law of Tunisia, has followed the case in all its legal aspects, with emphasis on how Tunisian laws about defusing rumors over the Internet are vague. In an almost similar case, on March 15, 2005, Ramzi Bettibi was arrested and then sentenced to four years' imprisonment for copying, onto a forum board he moderated, an online statement from a group threatening terror attacks if former Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon attended the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) in Tunisia.

[Al-khiyal]

Une Tunisienne condamnée pour la diffusion d’un message sur Facebook

Lundi 13 Juillet 2009 -- L'organisation de défense de la presse Reporters sans frontières (RSF) a dénoncé lundi, dans un communiqué, la décision d'un tribunal tunisien de condamner une militante des droits de l'Homme à 8 mois de prison pour avoir rediffusé un message sur Facebook. Selon RSF, la militante des droits de l'Homme, Khedija Arfaoui, 69 ans, a été condamnée le 4 juillet à 8 mois de prison ferme par le tribunal de première instance de Tunis pour avoir rediffusé un message sur Facebook faisant état d'enlèvements d'enfants en Tunisie, alors qu'une rumeur grandissante sur le kidnapping d'enfants à des fins de trafics d'organes circulait largement dans le pays.

Elle a été accusée de "trouble à l'ordre public" en vertu de l'article 121 du code pénal, qui prévoit que doit être puni comme s'il avait participé à la rébellion, quiconque l'a provoquée, soit par des discours tenus dans des lieux ou réunions publics, soit par placards, affiches ou écrits imprimés. Selon RSF, cette condamnation est "infondée". "Aucun texte juridique ne régit Internet et c'est la première fois que la justice tunisienne se saisit d'écrits postés sur Facebook", note l'organisation, ajoutant que Khedija Arfaoui "n'a fait que relayer un message qui existait déjà et n'est en aucun cas responsable d'avoir créé la rumeur dont on l'accuse".

[Al-khiyal]

Tunisian activist jailed over Facebook message

July 14, 2009 -- Reporters without Borders (RSF) on Monday (July 13th) denounced Tunisia's 8-month prison penalty for a 68-year-old female human rights activist over a Facebook post. Khedija Arfaoui, was convicted last Saturday of "disturbing public order" after posting a message about children allegedly being kidnapped in Tunisia for their organs. RSF claimed that the conviction has no legal basis since Tunisia "has no Internet laws". Arfaoui posted an existing message and was not responsible for starting the rumour, RSF added.