Imprisoned Tunisian Internet activist Zouhair Yahyaoui is in the fifth day of his hunger strike to protest the harsh conditions of his confinement. Zouhair Yahyaoui founded TUNeZine.com soon after he graduated from college. Yahyaoui has been held captive since June, 2002, when he was sentenced to 24 months for posting satirical criticism of the Tunisian government on his Web site, Tunezine.

In a 19 June 2002 letter to Tunisian President Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali, CPJ protested the arrest and prosecution of Zouhair Yahyaoui, an Internet café employee and editor of the online publication "Tunezine". On the evening of 4 June, plainclothes state agents detained Yahyaoui at an Internet café in the capital, Tunis. Authorities then searched Yahyaoui's home and confiscated disks and other computer materials. After spending several days in detention, Yahyaoui was charged in court on 13 June with intentionally publishing false information.

Tunisia's recent crackdown on cyber-dissidents has taken an ominous turn with the arrest and detention of journalist Zouhair Yahyaoui, founder and editor of the online news site TUNeZINE.

RSF has protested the 4 June 2002 arrest of Zouhair Yahyaoui, founder and editor of the online newspaper "TUNeZINE", and the government's suppression of the newspaper's website.

The World Organisation Against Torture (OMCT) is seriously concerned for the future of human rights in Tunisia, following a constitutional referendum which was, according to the Ministry of the Interior, approved by more than 99 per cent of voters. There is a real danger that the new constitutional powers will be used by the President of the Republic in order to further stifle any dissent within the country and to institutionalise his personal powers by giving him supreme authority over the legislative, executive and judicial branches of government, says the organization.

Reporters Without Borders (Reporters sans frontières - RSF) says it is appalled at the three years and two months jail sentence for subversion passed on Hamma Hammami, publisher of the Tunisian Communist Workers' Party (PCOT) newspaper El Badil, calling it "further evidence of the determination of President Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali's regime to muzzle the press."

The hearing of the appeal of Tunisian communist leader Hamma Hammami, editor of the party newspaper El Badil, against a nine-year prison sentence for subversion was postponed for three weeks by the Tunis appeal court on 9 March.

Hamma Hammami, is the director of a banned publication, Al Badil, and has been pursued by the Tunisian authorities for 29 years because of his opinions and political activities. By order of the Interior Ministry, all his works have been withdrawn from circulation and destroyed. He has been in hiding for nearly 4 years, since the Appeal Court of Tunis sentenced him to nine years and three months in August 1999 for membership of the Parti Communiste des Ouvriers Tunisiens - PCOT (Tunisian Workers' Communist Party). On January 12th, 2002 he opposed this judgement and a new trial is due to take place in Tunis on February 2nd. OMCT is deeply concerned about Hammami's physical and psychological integrity and as to whether he will receive a fair trial.

Amnsety International has condemned Tunisia - currently hosting the
Mediterranean Games - for its treatment of around 1,000 political prisoners
languishing in jails where they are subjected to a wide range of abuses.

Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and the International Federation of Human Rights joined Tunisian human rights organizations today in calling on the government of Tunisia immediately and unconditionally to release all prisoners of
conscience and end the routine harassment of former prisoners of conscience and critics of the authorities.

An impending appeals court ruling in Tunisia threatens to undermine the Arab world's oldest independent human rights organization, according to a report released today by Human Rights Watch and the Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders. The Observatory is a joint program of the International Federation for Human Rights and the World Organization against Torture.