Tunisia: Mosaïque FM does not want to change anything despite the arrest of its director
The Tunisian radio station Mosaïque FM is shaken after the arrest of its director, Noureddine Boutar, on February 13, 2023. But its journalists do not intend to change anything in the way they work.
AFP - SOFIENE HAMDAOUI
Text by: RFI Follow
2 mins
Noureddine Boutar, general manager of Mosaïque FM radio, begins his fifth day of detention this Saturday, February 18.
While his police custody has been extended for five days, journalists from his radio continue to feed the station.
Disbelief, determination but also concern now punctuate their daily lives since they learned that their boss was questioned at length about the station's editorial line.
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With our correspondent in Tunis,
Amira Souilem
Midi Show is the iconic midday radio show in Tunisia.
Every day, the team of four journalists dissects the latest news from the country.
But since Monday, February 13,
the day of the station manager's arrest
, the atmosphere has been a little heavy.
Elyès Gharbi, in charge of the program since the fall of Ben Ali in 2011, has the impression of being in a moment of seesaw:
“
Today, this serenity is still a little shaken.
She is deeply shaken when you have a channel boss who is imprisoned and questioned about the radio's editorial line, the choices of journalists, the choices of columnists... So frankly, that's where you lose your footing.
Because we don't understand why we end up justifying our own profession.
It raises extremely deep questions about the profession and about democracy and about Tunisia's choices at the moment.
»
As if nothing had happened, Haythem El Mekki, the show's satirical journalist, still presents his press review which does not spare
President Kaïs Saïed
.
He says :
“
How it will end exactly, we do not know.
We feel more electricity in the air.
But we try to make a kind of demonstration: even if the director is in prison, that does not mean that we will change our way of working, our opinions, nor our way of seeing things.
»
To date, no official information on the reasons for the arrest of Noureddine Boutar, the general manager of the station, has been made public.
► To read also: Freedom of the press: in Tunis, journalists denounce an unbreathable climate
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Tunisia
Kais Saied
Freedom of press
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