Three more blogs have been blocked in Tunisia this week. These blogs, Mochagheb (Disturber) and Ennaqed (The Critic) and Place Mohamed Ali have all been particularly active in providing news of the struggle of The Tunisian General Labour Union (UGTT), and especially about the latest social unrest in the southwestern phosphate mining region of Gafsa, where two people have been killed. One was shot dead by security forces and the other was electrocuted inside a local electric generator.

I asked the Tunisian blogger Ennaqed about the censorship of his blog in Tunisia. He said:

I think that the main reason of banning my blog is crossing the “red lines” that are constraining the media in Tunisia by talking about issues that are completely ignored by mainstream media. Last year, I was seriously engaged in covering the hunger strike of three Tunisian secondary school teachers who were expelled from their jobs for political reasons, and my blog was blocked temporarily. And like the rest of the Tunisian bloggers, I was blogging about the revolt in the mining region and recently about the prisoner swap between Israel and Hezbullah, and the remains of eight Tunisian men handed over by Israel. But, honestly, I think that the most direct reason for banning my blog might be my last blog post about the participation of an Israeli delegation in the 31st Congress of the International Geography Union (IGU) that is taking place in Tunisia. What I actually did is copy and re-post a press release about a group of Palestinian geographers who are boycotting the aforementioned conference because of Israeli participation.

On June 21 the censorship passed beyond all reason and banned the first and only podcasting Tunisian blog Radyoun (Radio) run by a group of Tunisian bloggers dedicated to discussing social and cultural topics. Apparently, the podcast debate about the sporadic protests in the poor mining region of Gasfa and about the freedom of expression led to the banning of the blog.

This is a non-comprehensive list of blocked blogs in Tunisia. Please keep in mind that the list does not include blocked websites:

1. Citizen Zouari‬, blog of Tunisian journalist and former political prisoner, Abdallah Zouari.
2. The Free Pen the blog of Tunisian journalist and former political prisoner, Slim Boukhdhir. In July 2007, this blog was also hacked and deleted.
3. ‫Mokhtar Yahyaoui‬, blog of a former Tunisian judge who was dismissed after publishing an open letter to President Ben Ali criticising the lack of independence of the judiciary.
4. Tunisia Watch, this blog is also run by Mokhtar Yahyaoui‬.
5. Astrubal
6. [fikra] blog of Tunisian activist and political refugee Sami Ben Gharbia.
7. Nawaat, popular group blog about news, politics, cyber-activism and Islamic reform.
8. Radyoun, the podcasting Tunisian blog.
9. Moaz Jmai. (this blog has been blocked in Tunisia where I’m writing this post)
10. Place Mohamed Ali (this blog has been blocked in Tunisia where I’m writing this post)
11. Sofiane Chourabi.
12. Nader.
13. Free Race.
14. Samsoum .
15. Tunisian Citizen.
16. For Gafsa.
17. Mochagheb.
18. Annaqued.
19. Zabbaleh.
20. Adam.
21. Moumni.
22. Free Word.

Attacks on video-sharing websites

Despite the fact that Tunisian authorities have permanently blocked access to both popular video-sharing websites Dailymotion and YouTube, on 3 September, 2007 and 2 November, 2007 respectively, Tunisian netizens have still managed to access these websites to either watch or share videos. And while the Tunisian government worked hard to ensure that the polished image of a “secular, modern and democratic” state would not be marred by any “negative” information disseminated by opponents on the web, Tunisian video activists and bloggers kept the spotlight on the Redeyef revolt exposing harsh repression and flooding both banned video-sharing websites Youtube and Dailymotion with footage of demonstrators, protesting against unemployment and nepotism, clashing with the police. And when the official media remained silent about the death of two demonstrators, videos of the victims, the wounded and the use of firearms against civilians, were smuggled out of Tunisia and posted on the video-sharing websites.

The anti-censorship campaigns

Interest in online censorship in Tunisia has never been higher since the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) in Tunis in November 2005 when a hardcore group of Tunisian bloggers and activists supported by sympathizers, organized a successful online campaign around Yezzi Fock Ben Ali (Enough is enough, Ben Ali) a “Freedom of Expression in Mourning!” campaign, the entire field of the online battle for freedom of speech has changed. The transformation owes to the growing number of bloggers, video and Facebook activists who are walking down the path of digital activism that was gradually and patiently traced by the first pioneers of the Tunisian online free speech movement who brilliantly used web 2.0 tools (videos, mash-ups, photos, etc.) to protest the crackdown on online free speech.

Badges of Tunisian online anticensorship campaigns

There is a growing number of blog posts and comments talking and/or protesting censorship. According to the advanced search engine of the recently launched North African Blogs aggregator, Berberus (Beta), of the 274 blog posts containing the word “censure” (censorship), 165 are Tunisian.

And of the 256 comments containing the same word, 98 were left on Tunisian blogs.

Compared with other North African Internet users, Tunisian Netizens seem to be much more interested in censorship than their counterparts in Algeria and Morocco. This trend is confirmed by the following graphs, generated by Google Insights for Search:

Back to April 2007. Following the ban on Dailymotion, Tunisian bloggers and activists from Nawaat.org launched the “Unblock Dailymotion campaign” in order to draw public attention to the aggressive online censorship policy adopted by the Tunisian regime. Cybversion.org blog was created to protest the ban of the Dailymotion and has since evolved into a group blog documenting censorship, anti-censorship and digital activism in Tunisia.

Fifty-one Tunisian bloggers are now running a new anti-censorship blog campaign launched on June 20 that encourages the local blogsphere to republish posts from censored blogs as part of the campaign to sensitize the public to the issue of online free speech. The blog campaign has received a lot of media attention from the Arab world and has been featured on the official website of Al Jazeera and the Qatari “Al-Arab” newspaper.

Badges and a headline widgets that use the free Feed2JS service displaying headlines of the anti-censorship blog campaign have been designed to build community around the blogs and help Tunisian bloggers stay updated about newly published content.
July 1st, is now “I blog for freedom of expression” day which Tunisian bloggers celebrate by blogging about free speech and/or by displaying a badge. Meanwhile, from time to time, Tunisian bloggers carry out ad-hoc campaigns to protest the banning of specific blogs or websites like the Blank Post Day that has been organized twice: the first time on 25 December 2006 and the second on 25 December 2007.

Tunisian netizens bid farewell to Facebook

On the social networking websites, Facebook, several groups protesting online censorship in Tunisia have been created.The most important one has so far gathered more than 620 members. Other groups have been created requesting the ATI (The Tunisian Internet Agency, which oversees Web distribution in the country) not to block Facebeook, which, unfortunately, seems to be blocked since yesterday by at least two of the country’s largest ISPs (Globalnet and PlaNet), as reported by several Tunisian bloggers and Facebook groups who were faced yesterday with the famous Tunisian 404 block page that states that the requested Web site could not be found.

It’s far more than just censorship

Blocking web 2.0 websites (Youtube, Dailymotion, Facebook) and barring access to local outspoken websites and blogs is the most obvious way of cracking down of the online free speech in Tunisia. It should be emphasized, however, that this is only one tool in the regime’s hand. Tunisia has adapted to the web 2.0 revolution by developing a broader strategy composed of a wide range of instruments including:
Punishing and persecuting outspoken online writers, bloggers and dissidents:
Between 2001 and 2008 more than 12 people have been arrested and/or sentenced because of their online activities:

1. The seven cyber dissidents known as the Youth of Zarzis;
2. The cyber dissident Zouhair Yahyaoui;
3. The forum administrator Ramzi Bettibi, known as the Tunisian “prisoner of the Net;
4. The online writer and Human rights advocate Mohamed Abbou;
5. The online Journalist and blogger Slim Boukhdhir;
6. The journalist and blogger Mohamed Fourati;
7. And while the last prisoner of opinion, blogger and Internet journalist Slim Boukhdhir, has been released from jail on 21 July, the Tunisian human rights NGO, Freedom and Equity, reported that a 22-year old ICT Student, Mariam Zouaghi, has been arrested, on July 26th, 2008, for visiting banned websites.

Creating an atmosphere of fear:

As is the case of China, creating a strong atmosphere of fear and a climate of intimidation has led Tunisian citizen to in general adopt a low profile vis-a-vis freedom of expression. During the last 7 years, most internet users and bloggers were censoring themselves by avoiding to raise their voices to address political topics or write freely bypassing the strict state censorship. Only a handful of activists, cyber dissidents and bloggers, usually the same men, are leading the free speech movement on the Internet, going well beyond these limits and even organizing an online anti-propaganda machine to the official one.

Hacking of dissident websites and blogs:

Almost every single Tunisian opposition website and self-hosted blog has been the victim of one or more hacking incidents. While there is no solid evidence that the Tunisian regime is behind attempts to take down opponent websites, there is quite a strong feeling among Tunisian opposition figures that the government is carrying out cyber-attacks, given their frequency and the nature of the targeted websites and blogs.

Moncef Marzouki, one of Tunisia’s most prominent human rights defenders (former President of the Tunisian League for Human Rights and leader of the banned opposition party Congrès Pour la République) openly accused the Tunisian regime of orchestrating and waging these destructive attacks against the opposition Web: “In a week my website was hacked four times (…) All of this, of course, happened simultaneously with the hacking of web based email accounts that the Tunisian police is carrying out against Human rights advocates and political opponents.”

Screenshots of hacked Tunisian websites

What we have seen more recently is that the attack on collective blog Nawaat.org (deleting of the database and ftp files) happened simultaneously with the hacking of the personal blogs and email accounts of the activists running Nawaat. According to a press release issued on 16 June, 2008, Reporters Without Borders stated that:

The Tunisian news and blog wesbite Nawaat (http://www.nawaat.org/) yesterday suffered its most serious hacker attack since its creation. Its database was erased and its home page was modified (see photo). Blogs by human rights activists Sami Ben Gharbia (http://www.kitab.nl/ ) and Astrubal (http://astrubal.nawaat.org/) were also affected. Their blogs continue to be inaccessible and their databases have been badly damaged. The websites have been restored although some dysfunction continues.

This is a non comprehensive list of targeted blogs and websites:

Filtering emails:

As reported earlier by Reporters Without Borders and some Tunisian NGOs, Tunisian human rights defenders are having trouble reading their emails on the three important web based mail clients: Yahoo, Gmail and Hotmail:

Reporters Without Borders is also surprised by the problems Tunisian Internet users are having with their email. Messages sent to them by human rights organisations such as the International Association for Supporting Political Prisoners (AISPP), the Tunisnews website or Reporters Without Borders are illegible on arrival.

Several sources said the messages can be seen in the inbox and can be opened, but often there is nothing inside. Once opened, they disappear from the inbox. “It looks like badly concealed filtering,” a specialist said.

It is worth noting that the issue does not affect “fresh/new” webmail accounts and it only happens when you log in to these accounts from within Tunisia. I have personally run a test, from The Netherlands with Tunisian lawyer Abdel Wahab Maatar and Tunisian blogger, activist, and former political prisoner Abdallah Zouari. I logged into their email accounts and was able to read their emails normally. The content I saw displayed was not the same they were reading. Here are two screenshots of the test. The first is from The Netherlands where I’m base and the second from Tunisia:

So it seems the email accounts of some Tunisian Internet users are being monitored by Deep Packet Inspection (DPI) without their knowledge. DPI is a technology that has the ability to monitor the online activity and filter the traffic on the network by removing “unwanted” material from the actual body of received emails.

Recently, I asked Robert Guerra - a Toronto-base technologist who helps NGOs with data privacy, secure communications and information security about this. These are his comments:

At first glance, seems that there’s some realtime interception of webmail and possibly other traffic is taking place. In a way, it looks like there’s a network neutrality issue… Perhaps Deep Packet Inspection (DPI) is being used. If indeed DPI is taking place, it might be worthwhile to raise it on the numerous DPI discussions that are taking place. The discussion in Canada is quite active, one where activists could use the Tunisian example to help their case. (…) it might be that existing accounts have been compromised in some way. Should ask if the accounts that are being affected were accessed at public (ie. net cafe) pc’s . if so, passwords might have been captured.

Tunisia is also blocking access, permanently, to both popular video-sharing websites, Youtube (since Since November 2nd, 2007) and Dailymotion (since Septembre 3rd, 2007)

Tunisia blocked access to both popular video-sharing websites, Youtube and Dailymotion, in order to prevent Tunisian netizens from watching video content featuring testimonies from former political prisoners and human rights activists. However, and as shown in this example, Tunisian cyberactivists from Nawaat.org are successful enough in besieging Carthage presidential palace, on Google Earth, with tens of human rights videos.
And you can explore more human rights videos when flying over other Tunisian regions and cities Google like Bizerte, Kef, etc.

Please, feel free to download this Google Earth kmz file (Keyhole Markup Zip) which will start Google Earth and fly you to Carthage Presidential palace.

View on Google Earth:   2.0 activism

To activate the Google YouTube layer, you have to navigate to the “Layers” menu on the left-hand side of Google Earth (see image above). Expanding the “Gallery” node in the layers tree will expose the “Youtube” layer. Once you select the YouTube button all the Google YouTube icons appear all over the globe.

His wife, Dalenda Boukhdhir, told Global Voices that the prison authorities placed Slim in “dry cell” for three days, from 20-23 March, 2008, turning off the water in his cell so he couldn’t wash. These measures have further aggravated the already serious health condition of her husband, she said. Mme Boukdhir has complained to the Red Cross about prison conditions and is hoping the Red Cross staff will visit Slim at the prison.

Slim Boukhdhir has staged several hunger strikes to protest the inhumane conditions under which he is being detained. His most recent hunger strike was called off on February 22, 2008, on the urging of his wife.

“Preventing a prisoner from seeing his family or having a clean cell is a flagrant violation of human rights,” Reporters Without Borders has said, “the injustice of sentencing this journalist to a year in prison is being compounded by his conditions of detention and staging a hunger strike has become his only way of making himself heard.”

We include below an alert from Luiza Toscane, a Human right activist, posted on the forum section of the Tunisian website Nawaat. (The English translation was done by Jennifer Brea, Global Voices’ French Language editor):

Lors de la visite qu’elle a rendu jeudi 13 mars à son mari, Slim Boukhdhir, journaliste incarcéré à la prison de Sfax, Dalenda Boukhdhir a pu constater que l’acharnement des autorités pénitentiaires à l’endroit de son mari ne connaissait pas de répit : ce dernier lui a dit que non seulement il vivait toujours dans sa cellule infecte et exiguë, mais aussi que depuis trois jours, il n’avait plus accès à un point d’eau. Les autorités pénitentiaires ont fait couper l’eau, et à la différence de ses co détenus, il ne peut sortir pour se laver ailleurs.

Slim Boukhdhir a alors envisagé une nouvelle grève de la faim pour protester contre cette nouvelle atteinte à ses droits élémentaires, projet que ses proches lui ont proposé d’abandonner. Et aujourd’hui, le couffin de nourriture qui lui a été apporté par sa mère a été accepté par l’administration pénitentiaire, signe que le détenu aurait consenti à renoncer à sa grève, signe aussi que Slim Boukhdhir renvoie la balle dans le camp des défenseurs des droits de l’homme : à nous d’exiger que soit mis un terme à ses conditions infra humaines d’incarcération, à nous de tout mettre en oeuvre pour sa libération.

Slim Boukhdir was arrested on November 26 and charged with “aggression against a public employee” and “affront to public decency”. He started blogging on the Arabic Blog Service: Maktoob Blogs after losing his job as journalist at the Tunisian “Akhbar Al-Joumhurya” (News of the Republic) newspaper on August 2004. In July 2007, his blog was hacked into and deleted. Until his arrest on November 26, 2007, Slim Boukhdhir continued his work as correspondent for the Al-Arabiya TV Website, the London-based pan-Arab daily Al Quds Al Arabi and the German Qantara web portal.

The outspoken Tunisian journalist and blogger Slim Boukhdir has been arrested on November 26 and charged with “aggression against a public employee” and “affront to public decency”. According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, the court denied his release and the hearing is scheduled to resume tomorrow, December 4th. Slim Boukhir could face up to 18 months imprisonment.

Slim Boukhdhir during his hunger strike.

During the last year, Boukhdhir has undertaken numerous hunger strikes to denounce government harassment and political restrictions on his right to leave the country. His most recent hunger strike was held on November 1st to denounce the authorities’ refusal to grant him a passport.

Slim Boukhdir is continuously being harassed, assaulted and threatened by both plain-clothes police and gangsters close to President Ben Ali’s brothers-in-law. After loosing his job as journalist in the “Akhbar Al-Joumhurya” (News of the Republic) newspaper on August 2004, Slim Boukhdhir started blogging on the Arabic Blog Service: Maktoob Blog. But in July 2007, his blog has been hacked and deleted.

Several Tunisian bloggers are reporting today not being able to access the popular video-sharing site Youtube. One Tunisian blogger who has done a traceroute from Tunisia to check the block has sent us this screenshot:

If it turns out to be true, Youtube will be the second video sharing site blocked by Tunisia. Since September 3rd, 2007, Tunisia is still blocking access to Dailymotion.

Dailymotion, France’s YouTube-like video sharing site has been blocked, again, in Tunisia. Still unclear if the government-controlled body, ATI (Agence Tunisienne d’Internet), throw whom all Tunisia’s ISPs are operating, has imposed the ban.

On April 1st, 2007, Dailymotion was blocked in Tunisia for almost a week. Citizen Lab’s technical research director, Nart Villeneuve who has been following the case concluded that dailymotion is most likely blocked because it has been categorized by SmartFilter - the filtering software produced by Secure Computing, a US-based company andused by Tunisia- as pornography: “It was blocked because SmartFilter categorized the web site as pornography, and, since Tunisia blocks the pornography category the web site was blocked. Some time between April 4, 2007 and April 9, 2007 SmartFilter removed dailymotion.com from the pornography category.”

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) has condemned the Tunisian authorities’ blocking of access to Dailymotion. “The blocking of the www.dailymotion.com site may have been prompted by the posting of a number of videos on the political situation in Tunisia” said the organization in its statement issued on April 3, 2007.

On April 6th, 2007, following the ban on Dailymotion, Tunisian bloggers and activists have launched the “Unblock Dailymotion” campaign “in order to highlight the unfair ban and to draw the public attention to the aggressive censorship prevailing in the country.”

But in the main time, the editor of the online news website Kalima (censured in Tunisia) Omar Mestiri is facing a libel suit based on an online article he wrote last year accusing a pro-government lawyer of fraud. The suit could result in a three-year prison sentence. “The charges are invalid because the article in question cannot be read online inside Tunisia as the website is censored by the authorities,” Reporters Without Borders said.

From his prison cell in Bizerte (65km north of Tunis), The Tunisian prisoner Ramzi Bettibi managed to smuggle a very alarming letter that found its way on to the Internet (available in French). Ramzi is serving a four-year sentence at Bizerte for copying, onto a forum board he moderated, an online statement from a group threatening terror attacks if former Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon attended the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) that was held in Tunisia in 2005. Ramzi Bettibi was arrested on 15 March 2005 at the internet café where he worked. In prison he is frequently subjected to torture, which the authorities hope will make him collaborate with the State Security services. “Bettibi should be freed because the government never proved that he had a criminal intent to threaten others or to incite violence,” said Sarah Leah Whitson, director of the Middle East and North Africa division at Human Rights Watch in a statement published last year. “Under these circumstances, cutting and pasting on the Internet should not be a crime,” she added.

In his letter, Ramzi describes a secret detention facility near Bizerte city, where he has been interrogated by CIA and French-speaking agents about his alleged ties to Jihadist groups in Iraq and online activities. According to the letter, the prisoners are being interrogated and held in containers in a secret location around 15 minutes drive from Bizerte prison.

Since the closure of the secret CIA jails hosted by Poland and Romania following the Washington Post’s revelations and other media reports, there have been rumors circulating about the transfer of prisoners to other CIA facilities somewhere in North Africa. But this letter from an “eye-witness” (even if no one can confirm or deny that Ramzi Bettibi was the real author) appears to offer the first concrete “evidence” of the existence of such facility in Tunisia. It also details the prison’s possible location and the identities of some of the prisoners who are being interrogated and held clandestinely. Surprisingly, the letter was written on June 9, 2007, one day only after the publication of the second report of “Secret detentions and illegal transfers of detainees involving Council of Europe member states” adopted by the Council of Europe’s Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights.

This is a call from my imprisonment in Bizerte Civil prison. It’s a call to the world to save me from imminent danger to my safety. At the end of last April, I was transferred to another prison located 15 minutes driving from my previous Bizerte Civil prison. I was totally shocked when I found myself in a secret CIA detention where other detainees also were held in containers.

I was interrogated by a French-speaking person about my online relationship with Iraqi Jihadist groups. I mentioned to him that his information is totally not accurate and I’m a free speech prisoner. I also told him that HRW, Amnesty, and many other organizations have talked about my case. The American interrogator so surprisingly yelled at the Tunisian officers. They assaulted and threatened me with fabricating a story of my attempting to escape from prison. They also threatened to relocate me to another secret prison if I talked to my family about what I saw.

Things didn’t stop at that. They returned two weeks later. Tunisian state security officers cuffed me and an American security officer asked me about my role in ALSAHAB (Al-Qaeda’s media agent). He also questioned me about the ALIKHLAS website and Alansar online forum. They gave me two documents to pick from. The first is my death certificate and the second is my release certificate. They also threatened me to hurt my brother.

I no longer can bear what is happening to me. At once, Tunisian state security agents attack me, and this time CIA agents and secret detentions came into the picture.

Oh God, witness that my fate is in great danger. Save the other detainees in this American detention. I’ve heard of a Saudi detainee named Saeed Al-ghamdi, and another Tunisian detainee named Abou Omar Al-tunisi.

Search for this prison. It’s not far from Bizerte. I understood that It’s may be located in a military Barracks.

According to a previous report issued by the International Association for the Support of Political Prisoners (AISPP), Ramzi Bettibi began a new hunger strike on January 18, 2007 in protest against maltreatment and abuse in prison. In a statement published online on March 12th, 2007, the National Council for Freedoms in Tunisia (CNLT) described the way he was tortured:

Le 23 février 2007, Ramzi Bettibi, le prisonnier du net, a été soumis à la violence extrême de 3 officiers en civil dans la prison de Bizerte, et qui se sont présentés comme la brigade de la Sûreté de l’Etat. Ils lui ont attaché les bras et les jambes à une chaise et ont voulu lui faire ingurgiter du lait de force pour qu’il cesse sa grève de la faim commencée en protestation contre des violences perpétrées à son encontre antérieurement. Une des ses dents a été cassée.
C’est la cinquième fois en l’espace de quelques mois que Ramzi Bettibi subit des séances de torture en prison visant à le faire collaborer avec les services de la Sûreté de l’Etat.

On February 23, 2007, Ramzi Bettibi, the Tunisian “prisoner of the Net”, was subjected to extreme violence in the Bizerte prison at the hands of three plain-clothes officers who claimed to be members of a State Security brigade. They chained his arms and legs to a chair and tried to force-feed him milk, to break the hunger strike he started in order to protest previous episodes of violence against him. One of his teeth was broken in the process.

This is the fifth time in the space of a few months that Ramzi Bettibi has been tortured in prison, in order to make him collaborate with the State Security services.