Tunisian blogger arrested - and freed again

For a few days there was an alarm: Tunisian Fatma Riahi, alias Fatma Arabicca was arrested on 4 November. She is supposedly the woman behind the blog DebaTunisie and supposedly responsible for the terrific cartoons on this blog (in French).
Today Sunday 8 November however the news in the Tunisian blogsophere where Fathma is very popular, was that she has been released. Her lawyer said that as yet there have been brought  no charges against her. One has to be careful, though. Press freedom and freedoms in general aren't really distributd that generously in Ben Ali's Tunisia

In the meantime. take a look  at one of the cartoons of which Fatma supposedly is the author. There are many more of those on the DebaTunisie blog that van be found here.

Tunisia Watch reports that also journalistst have been harrassed. Independent journalist Slim Boukhdir was stopped in the steet on 21 Octover by five men and forced into a car. They drove him to an empty spot, beat him up, took his cell phone, clothes, identity papers, home keys and money and threw him unto the street. A collegue of his, Taoufik ben Brik, was summoned to a police station in connection with a complaint that he would have assaulted a woman in the street. He was arrested and will appear before a judge on 19 November. Both men had in the past written stories critical of  president Ben Ali