Algerian journalist beaten by plainclothes police

Reporters Without Borders (Reporters sans frontières - RSF) protested today against a physical attack by Tunisian police on Algerian journalist Mohamed Ioua Noughene, of the daily paper El Khabar. "The Tunisian authorities are disgracefully taking advantage of the international media's focus on Israel and the French presidential election to resume their attacks against regime opponents and journalists," said RSF secretary-general Robert Ménard in a letter to Tunisian interior minister Hedi M'henni. RSF notes that over the past year, three journalists, one of them French, have been physically attacked by Tunisian police. RSF learns that a May Day meeting in Tunis organised by the underground weekly Kaws el-Karama could not be held because large numbers of police barred access to the meeting hall. As people saw this and left the area, Noughene was set upon by five plainclothes police who beat him up even though he told them he was an Algerian journalist. Three Tunisian trade unionists who tried to help him were also beaten and one, Fathi Debak, was taken to a nearby wood and severely beaten. A few hours earlier, police moved to disperse several hundred people who had gathered in Mohammed Ali Square, in Tunis, to celebrate May Day and show support for the Palestinians. A plainclothes policeman threw a tear-gas grenade – deliberately, according to witnesses – at Jalel Zoghlami, managing editor of Kaws el-Karama, and two trade unionists.