The National Syndicate of Tunisian Journalists announced that a court had decided to imprison journalist Shahrzad Oukacha, against the background of her "criticism" of the Ministry of the Interior.

The union said in a statement that "the Republic's attorney (the public prosecutor) at the Ariana court (north of the capital), decided to keep (arrest) the journalist, Shahrazad Okasha, on the background of posts."

On April 11, the journalist said in a post on Facebook: "From today onwards, I hold the Minister of Interior Tawfiq Sharaf El-Din personally responsible for my physical and moral safety, and the safety of my family, my home, and my car, which his (security element) insisted on searching without permission (..)," Perhaps he had something that he wanted to put in place to frame a case, but he failed."

The syndicate added that the public prosecutor charged the journalist with "annoying others on public communications networks", calling for her immediate release.

It warned of "the danger of the judiciary turning into a criminalizing authority and not a protective authority for rights and freedoms," calling on the authorities "to fulfill their international obligations towards journalists by not imprisoning them and placing them in arbitrary detention."

And she added, "Negative indicators continue to threaten a real setback in freedom of the press and freedom of expression in Tunisia, where, for the second time in a row, journalists are kept for a period not exceeding a month."

She added, "It was the Ministry of the Interior that filed a complaint against Okasha after she published posts criticizing the ministry's management," explaining that this comes in "a context in which the persecution of journalists (in the country) is frequent."

There was no comment from the Tunisian authorities, which usually affirm their commitment to freedom of the press and expression, in light of human rights warnings about the decline in the level of freedoms and the increase in the pattern of restrictions on freedom of expression in the country.

This comes in light of a political crisis in Tunisia since July 25, 2021, when President Kais Saied began imposing exceptional measures, including: dissolving Parliament and the Judicial Council, issuing legislation by presidential decrees, and others.​​​​​​

Threatened freedoms

The captain of the Tunisian Journalists Syndicate, Mohamed Yassin Al-Jelassi, said, in a previous interview with Al-Jazeera Net, that the general situation in Tunisia, after the exceptional measures taken by Said, proves that freedoms are threatened and not guaranteed.

He added, "The reality of the Tunisian media cannot be separated from the context of the current general circumstance, and we have expressed in previous statements that there is a clear threat to freedom of the press and expression in Tunisia," and added, "There is a systematic policy of intimidation against journalists, whether by using security force or threatening speeches adopted by the President his speeches criticizing the media.

He continued, "This is in addition to campaigns of distortion, incitement and indecent assault, whether against journalists or against opinion-holders opposing the president's directions, by electronic militias on social media, or through direct attacks in the field by members of the security services or the demonstrators themselves."

Al-Jelassi concluded, "We have recorded a steady rise in attacks on journalists, and a continuous attack on the right to access information, and therefore we expect Tunisia's international classification to decline in the Press Freedom Index that will be issued this year, noting that the press freedom rating indicators depend on several measures, including attacks on the freedom of the press and journalists, and diversity and diversity." What is in the media, access to information, and physical integrity, all of these standards were struck after last July 25.”