Tunisia arrests comedian, TV host for ‘offending’ president

Tunisia arrests comedian, TV host for ‘offending’ president

Tunisian authorities arrested a popular comedian and a television show host Friday
for offending President Beji Caid Essebsi, whose office promptly denied it had
anything to do with the case.
“The prosecutor has decided to place in detention” satirist Migalo, whose real
name is Wassim Lahrissi, and television host Moez Ben Gharbia, spokesman
Sofiene Sliti said.
The two “committed an offence against the head of state, a fraud,” by
inappropriately representing themselves as someone else, and will remain behind
bars until they appear in court on March 25.
“We will not enter into the details of the case” so as not to undermine the
investigation, Sliti said.
But private Mosaique FM radio, where Migalo works as a comedian and
impersonator, said he had recently pretended to be the president in a telephone
call he made to a businessman.
According to the broadcaster, the businessman, who was not named, had recently
asked Ben Gharbia to intercede on his behalf with the president but did not say
what it was about.
It was not immediately clear what the businessman was supposedly seeking or
what Migalo allegedly said to him.
Ben Gharbia was formerly a star host with private television Ettounsiya who has
been planning to launch his own television channel.
Mosaique FM urged authorities to free Migalo, vowing to “spare no effort to
defend him” if his arrest was linked directly or indirectly to his job as a satirical
performer.
Essebsi, 88, is a veteran of politics who served as interior minister under the
country’s founder and as parliament chief under ousted dictator Zine El Abidine
Ben Ali.
He won Tunisia’s first free presidential election in December, capping off the
transition to democracy in the birthplace of the Arab Spring.
As part of that transition, Tunisia adopted a new constitution last year that
guarantees the right to freedom of conscience and expression.
In denying involvement in the case, a statement from Essebsi’s office said
“freedom of the press and expression are acquisitions the president… is
committed to defending, he being its principal guarantor.”
An offence against the president is punishable by three years in prison,
misrepresentation of identities by two years and fraud by five years.
Human rights lawyer Ghazi Mrabet criticised the political class for not having done
away with what he called repressive elements of the penal code, which he
insisted should have been superceded by the revolution against Ben Ali.
And Amna Guellali, representative in Tunisia of Human Rights Watch (HRW), said
the law should be amended to deal only with “extreme, or very serious, cases.”
The arrests came days after a military appeals court jailed blogger Yassine Ayari
for six months for defaming the army, despite criticism from rights groups.
Ayari claims he is being punished for blogs he wrote while out of the country that
were critical of Essebsi’s anti-Islamist Nidaa Tounes party.