Tunisia: Journalists and bloggers assaulted on “Martyrs’ Day” protest

Anti-government protesters  clashed with police in the streets of Tunis over the weekend as they attempted to defy a ban prohibiting demonstrations on the capital’s main avenue.

Protesters raising anti-government slogans took to the streets on 9 April to celebrate Martyrs’ Day in commemoration of those killed by French troops on the same date in 1938, but were soon faced with a tough crack down from police.

Tear gas and batons were used to disperse protesters who were in defiance of the ban, introduced by the Interior Ministry on 28 March, prohibiting demonstrations on Habib Bourguiba Avenue. On 14 January 2011, thousands of protesters gathered on the emblematic avenue to call for the fall of the regime of Ben Ali the emblematic avenue.

While covering the Martyrs’ Day protest and the clashes between protesters and police, bloggers and journalists got a taste of police brutality. Monji Khadhraoui, General Secretary of the National Syndicate for Tunisian Journalists (SNJT) told Index on Censorship that 13 journalists from both national and foreign press were assaulted.

Meriem Ben Ghazi, a young journalist for Tunisia Live was verbally abused and threatened by three police officers in plain clothes, whilst using an iPad to live stream the protest on the interent. She was assaulted even though she had her press card with her, and told police that she was a journalist.

Ben Ghazi to Index: “one police officer said to me ‘If you do not go home, we will beat you.’ They struck the Ipad with their batons, and they also tried to arrest our cameraman. We were not the only ones. We saw many journalists being assaulted.”

Julie Schneider, the Tunis correspondent for the French newspaper Le Point was also assaulted, despite telling police that she was a journalist. In a testimony published on the website of the newspaper, Schneider described the abuse by the police:

“In few minutes, I fell to the ground. I was beaten on my back, and on my behind…I was only thinking about my camera, my memory card, and the shots that I took. I do not know how much time it took…Finally, I could hear my camera being smashed on the sidewalk…A representative of the Democratic Modernist Pole intervened and screamed that I was a journalist. I repeated the same thing, but nothing. I was beaten again on my head.”

The SNJT decided to stop its coverage of all the activities of the Interior Ministry and those of Ennhdha (the ruling party) which the syndicate accuses of “sending its militias” to assault journalists. Zied el-Hani, a journalist, and an executive member of the SNJT told private radio station Mosaique FM that he was verbally abused by “militias belonging to Ennahdha”.

Prominent blogger Fatma Riahi (who uses the alias Fatma Arabicca) was beaten by a police officer in plain clothes, and she was immediately transferred to a hospital.

“We took to the streets to demand our right to free expression, but the police of Larayedh (Minister of Interior) — no longer the police of Ben Ali — the police of Ennhdha oppressed us, because we do not hold the same opinion”, she said.

The French language web magazine, Kapitalis also reported that its editor-in-chief Zohra Abid was beaten by a police officer.

Almost 15 months after the fall of the autocratic rule of Ben Ali, journalists are still being assaulted for doing their job. The battle for freedom of speech and a free press seems to be far from over in the birth place of the so-called Arab Spring.

Jordan: Demonstrators beaten in custody

Police beat 30 demonstrators whilst they were detained at a police station in Jordan on 31 March. The demonstrators were arrested after gathering near the Prime Minister’s office in Amman, protesting the detention of seven activists from Tafila who were arrested mid-March. The 100 strong group of protesters were warned by police after some began chanting “if the people are scorned, the regime will fall.” The crowd were violently dispersed and beaten with truncheons by the police, and 30 participants were arrested. After being taken to the Central Amman Police station, officers continued to kick, punch and beat those who had been arrested.

Public has right to know "within boundaries" Leveson Inquiry told

The head of corporate communications at Avon and Somerset Police told the Leveson Inquiry that the public has a right to know “within boundaries”.

Discussing the “unrelenting” media frenzy during the inquiry into the murder of Joanna Yeates in 2010, Amanda Hirst stressed the importance that any information that might have prejudiced the integrity of the investigation would be “contained”.

Hirst said there was a “lot of inaccurate reporting” throughout the inquiry, which “created problems for the investigation team”. She cited a request made by a BBC journalist for an interview with the parents of the murdered Bristol architect, which the force declined on their behalf.

When asked by Lord Justice Leveson why she did not take the matter to Ofcom, Hirst said it was felt that “it probably would not have made a substantial difference”, noting that the force was in the middle of a “fast-moving” investigation.

“We are robust in complaining when we feel the justification to do that,” she said.

Also speaking this afternoon, Barbara Brewis, a former reporter and current manager of media and marketing at Durham Constabulary, stressed the importance of having a solid working relationship based on trust with the media, particularly the local press, but said journalists are “not your friends”.

Her colleague, Chief Constable Jonathan Stoddart, also emphasised the “high-trust” relationship the force has among its staff and with local media. “They have an important social role in holding us to account and challenging poor practice, improper conduct or malfeasance,” Stoddart wrote in his witness statement.

He flirted with the idea of a “central repository that records contact and content of conversations”, suggesting it would be feasible in a constabulary such as Durham’s, but less so in a bigger force such as the Metropolitan Police.

Brewis disagreed with claims that a logging system would have chilling effect. “If it’s the right thing to do, we’ll do it,” she said.

The Inquiry continues tomorrow.

Follow Index on Censorship’s coverage of the Leveson Inquiry on Twitter – @IndexLeveson

Plastic bullets, police, protest and the press

Several reports yesterday and today suggest that police will have baton rounds “available” to them at the student demonstration planned for 9 November.

This has led to some outrage. The Guardian got this absurd quote from Green Party London Assembly member Jenny Jones:

Any officer that shoots a student with a baton round will have to answer to the whole of London. How did we come to this? An unpopular government pushing ahead with policies that are all pain and no gain, relying on police armed with plastic bullets to deal with young people who complain about it all. The prospect of the police shooting at unarmed demonstrators with any kind of bullet is frankly appalling, un-British and reminiscent of scenes currently being used by murderous dictatorships in the Middle East.

This is a bizarre and wrongheaded comparison. To suggest that the possibility of baton rounds being used on protesters in London is somehow the same as the fact of tank shells being fired at protesters in Homs is insulting to people standing against genuine tyranny, as opposed to an “unpopular government”.

Then there is the idea that plastic bullets are somehow “un-British”, which will be news to the people of Northern Ireland, both the ones who identify as British and those who don’t.

Meanwhile, Chavs author Owen Jones has tweeted that the police are using “threats about rubber bullets” in an attempt to “intimidate protesters”. Jones fails to identify what exactly the “threat” is.

In fact, if one examines the language of the Metropolitan Police statement, what we are dealing with is a contingency rather than a threat. This from the BBC:

In a statement, Scotland Yard said rubber bullets – also known as baton rounds – were “carried by a small number of trained officers”, none of whom would be patrolling the route of the march.

“This tactic requires pre-authority, and would take time to deploy, and is one of a range of tactics we have had available for public order, and not used, in the past.”

The story seems to have first emerged on London radio station LBC yesterday. But it is really not a story at all, or at least not a development. The Metropolitan Police have always had the capacity to use rubber bullets, and chosen not to do so.

If it is the case that an LBC reporter contacted the police to ask them if plastic bullets were part of the police’s arsenal to deal with disturbance, it would have been wrong of the police to deny this was the case. But this is very, very different from saying they would be used, and indeed counterintuitive to Met tactics on protest. Plastic bullets are not very useful for containment, which is the Metropolitan Police’s current method of dealing with protesters. Containment (including “kettling”) involves close quarters engagement with protesters, circumstances in which, again, the use of plastic bullets would be absurd (and absurdly dangerous to all parties).

Perhaps the police should be clearer on their tactics and arsenal, but those who claim to be on the side of the protesters should be careful not to create unnecessary tension.