Location: Tunisia
Date: April 22, 2022

Journalist Chahrazed Akacha was detained on Thursday, April 14 by a Tunisian court for criticizing the interior minister and the police of the country. The journalist had taken to her Facebook account to demand that the interior ministry rein in the police after security forces physically assaulted her on the field and took off her veil.

CFWIJ spoke to Elizia Volkman, a journalist currently based in Tunisia about the incident. According to Elizia, Chahrazed was released after a short detention period and the charges against her social media posts were subsequently dropped. However, another charge sheet was later filed against the journalist, the claims of which have not been made public. Simply put, while Chahrazed is not in any immediate threat, the state has retained the power to summon her and serve her with a lawsuit at any point in the future. 

Activists and journalists on the ground have warned of the threats to press freedom under President Kais Saied since he suspended Prime Minister Hichem Mechichi and his parliament in July last year. Since the dismissal of Mechichi’s government, news media companies have been blatantly targeted. One day after the suspension of the parliament, the police stormed the offices of Al-Jazeera Arabic in Tunis. Law enforcement officers asked journalists to vacate the premises and searched the offices without any warrant. The staff was told to switch off their phones at the time and prohibited from taking their belongings. 

When we spoke to Elizia last year about the crisis unfolding, she warned that the state is looking to use the judiciary against the press in a similar fashion to what Chahrazed Akacha is facing today. “They are weaponizing old defamation laws to arrest journalists,” she had warned. Defamation is criminalized in Tunisia, which means anyone criticizing Saied at the moment, runs the risk of being arrested and tried for defaming the president. 

The Coalition For Women In Journalism strongly condemns what it identifies as blatant legal harassment of Chahrazed Akacha. Criticism on social media should at no point lead to a journalist facing jail time. But more importantly, the insidiousness of a second charge sheet the contents of which have not been made public is not lost on observers. This is an attempt by the state to intimidate Chahrazed into silence with the possibility of arrest hanging over her. The charges against the journalist must immediately be dropped.

The Coalition For Women In Journalism is a global organization of support for women journalists. The CFWIJ pioneered mentorship for mid-career women journalists across several countries around the world and is the first organization to focus on the status of free press for women journalists. We thoroughly document cases of any form of abuse against women in any part of the globe. Our system of individuals and organizations brings together the experience and mentorship necessary to help female career journalists navigate the industry. Our goal is to help develop a strong mechanism where women journalists can work safely and thrive.

If you have been harassed or abused in any way, and please report the incident by using the following form.