No Laughing Matter

November 16, 2005
Wall Street Journal
Original Source: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB113209355300098106.html?mod=opinion&ojcontent=otep

The running joke leading up to this week's U.N. Summit on the Information Society was that it was being held in Tunisia, a state whose restrictions on freedoms of the press and expression are harsh even by Arab standards. But no one's laughing now that the regime of President Ben Ali has lived up to its reputation even before the official opening today.
The most widely reported incident was the beating and stabbing Friday of Christophe Boltanski, a reporter for the French daily Libération who was writing on the country's repressive politics. Tunis claims to have arrested two suspects in the attack, which left Mr. Boltanski moderately injured, and says that reports about the incident have been overblown because it could have happened in any world capital. (Keep that phrase in mind.)
Whoever was really responsible for the Boltanski attack, the visiting press isn't being warmly welcomed. A cameraman and reporter for Belgium's RTBF television station said that Tunisian secret police forced them out of their car as they approached the German Embassy's Goethe Institute for a Citizens' Summit on the Information Society. The crew's camera was taken away temporarily and later returned without its tape.
The Ali government again offers only denials. But Bob Carty, a producer for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, told us that he and about half a dozen witnesses saw men in suits pull the Belgian crew over. Mr. Carty witnessed the incident from the nearby Canadian Consulate, where he'd gone to report that a plainclothes police officer also blocked him from entering the Goethe Institute.
A reporter for Dow Jones Newswires said that when he began to interview a man on a Tunis sidewalk who had given him directions, three plainclothes police officers walked up and pulled the man aside. After rejoining the reporter, the man refused to answer any questions.
Reporters in Tunis aren't getting much help from the U.N. Yoshio Utsumi, secretary-general of the U.N.'s International Telecommunication Union, told reporters yesterday that he could only guarantee the safety and freedom to work of journalists accredited for the summit. (Mr. Boltanski, it seems, was not so registered.) I warn you, Mr. Utsumi continued, that any city in the world is not safe and you should take care of yourself. Sound familiar?