media, legal threats exert pressures on content
providers operating within the country.
In 2001 President Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali
removed prison sentences from the Press Law,
which criminalizes criticism of the government. 21
However, rights groups have pointed out that
imprisonment and other harsh penalties are preserved in the Penal Code. 22
ISPs are required to send the Ministry of
Telecommunications a current list of their subscribers each month. 23 ISPs, Internet service
subscribers, Web page owners, and Web server
owners are responsible for ensuring that the content of the pages and Web servers that they host
conform to the Press Code’s prohibitions against
publications “likely to upset public order.” 24 In
addition, these parties are “obliged to constantly
monitor the content of web servers operated by
the service provider so as to not allow any information contrary to public order and good morals
to remain on the system.” 25
These regulations also apply to Publinets,
government-sponsored Internet cafés. Café owners are responsible for the activities of their
patrons. 26 Computer monitors in Publinet cafés
visited by an ONI researcher were angled so that
the café owner could see the screens, and in one
case, the café owner commented when the
researcher attempted to access blocked sites. 27
Tunisia achieves its filtering through the use
of a commercial software program, SmartFilter,
sold by the U.S. company Secure Computing.
Because all fixed-line Internet traffic passes
through facilities controlled by ATI, the government is able to load the software onto its servers
and filter content consistently across Tunisia’s
twelve ISPs. Tunisia purposefully hides its filtering
from Internet users. SmartFilter is designed to
display a 403 “Forbidden” error message when a
user attempts to access a blocked site; the
Tunisian government has replaced this message
with a standard 404 “File Not Found” error message, which gives no hint that the requested site
is actively blocked. 28
ONI testing results
ONI testing in Tunisia revealed pervasive filtering
of Web sites of political opposition groups such
as the Al-Nadha Movement (www.nahdha.info)
and Tunisian Workers’ Communist Party (www.al
badil.org). Web sites that contain oppositional
news and politics were also blocked. Examples
include www.perspectivestunisiennes.net, www.
nawaat.org, www.tunisnews.com, and www.tune
zine.com.
Web sites that publish oppositional articles
by Tunisian journalists were also blocked. For
example, ONI verified the blocking of the French
daily Libération Web site in February 2007
because articles by Tunisian journalist Taoufik
Ben Brik critical of President Zine el-Abidine Ben
Ali appeared on the site. 29
Also blocked are Web sites that criticize
Tunisia’s human rights records. For example, the
Web sites of the League for the Defense of
Human Rights (www.ltdh.org) and the Congrés
Pour la République (www.cprtunisie.net) were
blocked, along with the Web sites of Reporters
Without Borders (www.rsf.org), the International
Freedom of Expression eXchange (www.ifex.org),
the Islamic Human Rights Commission
(www.ihrc.org), and the Arabic Network for
Human Rights Information (www.hrinfo.org).
Although the home page of Human Rights Watch
(HRW) was accessible, the Arabic- and Frenchlanguage versions of an HRW report on Internet
repression in Tunisia were blocked.
Pornographic sites and anonymizers and
circumvention tools, such as Anonymizer
(www.anonymizer.com)
and
Guardster
(www.guardster.com), were filtered extensively.
Indeed, almost all of the tested sites belonging to
these categories were blocked.
A few sites that criticize the Quran (www.
thequran.com) and Islam (www.islameyat.com)
or encourage Muslims and others to convert to
Christianity (www.biblicalchristianity.freeserve.
co.uk) were blocked, though their small number
Country Summaries
397
providers operating within the country.
In 2001 President Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali
removed prison sentences from the Press Law,
which criminalizes criticism of the government. 21
However, rights groups have pointed out that
imprisonment and other harsh penalties are preserved in the Penal Code. 22
ISPs are required to send the Ministry of
Telecommunications a current list of their subscribers each month. 23 ISPs, Internet service
subscribers, Web page owners, and Web server
owners are responsible for ensuring that the content of the pages and Web servers that they host
conform to the Press Code’s prohibitions against
publications “likely to upset public order.” 24 In
addition, these parties are “obliged to constantly
monitor the content of web servers operated by
the service provider so as to not allow any information contrary to public order and good morals
to remain on the system.” 25
These regulations also apply to Publinets,
government-sponsored Internet cafés. Café owners are responsible for the activities of their
patrons. 26 Computer monitors in Publinet cafés
visited by an ONI researcher were angled so that
the café owner could see the screens, and in one
case, the café owner commented when the
researcher attempted to access blocked sites. 27
Tunisia achieves its filtering through the use
of a commercial software program, SmartFilter,
sold by the U.S. company Secure Computing.
Because all fixed-line Internet traffic passes
through facilities controlled by ATI, the government is able to load the software onto its servers
and filter content consistently across Tunisia’s
twelve ISPs. Tunisia purposefully hides its filtering
from Internet users. SmartFilter is designed to
display a 403 “Forbidden” error message when a
user attempts to access a blocked site; the
Tunisian government has replaced this message
with a standard 404 “File Not Found” error message, which gives no hint that the requested site
is actively blocked. 28
ONI testing results
ONI testing in Tunisia revealed pervasive filtering
of Web sites of political opposition groups such
as the Al-Nadha Movement (www.nahdha.info)
and Tunisian Workers’ Communist Party (www.al
badil.org). Web sites that contain oppositional
news and politics were also blocked. Examples
include www.perspectivestunisiennes.net, www.
nawaat.org, www.tunisnews.com, and www.tune
zine.com.
Web sites that publish oppositional articles
by Tunisian journalists were also blocked. For
example, ONI verified the blocking of the French
daily Libération Web site in February 2007
because articles by Tunisian journalist Taoufik
Ben Brik critical of President Zine el-Abidine Ben
Ali appeared on the site. 29
Also blocked are Web sites that criticize
Tunisia’s human rights records. For example, the
Web sites of the League for the Defense of
Human Rights (www.ltdh.org) and the Congrés
Pour la République (www.cprtunisie.net) were
blocked, along with the Web sites of Reporters
Without Borders (www.rsf.org), the International
Freedom of Expression eXchange (www.ifex.org),
the Islamic Human Rights Commission
(www.ihrc.org), and the Arabic Network for
Human Rights Information (www.hrinfo.org).
Although the home page of Human Rights Watch
(HRW) was accessible, the Arabic- and Frenchlanguage versions of an HRW report on Internet
repression in Tunisia were blocked.
Pornographic sites and anonymizers and
circumvention tools, such as Anonymizer
(www.anonymizer.com)
and
Guardster
(www.guardster.com), were filtered extensively.
Indeed, almost all of the tested sites belonging to
these categories were blocked.
A few sites that criticize the Quran (www.
thequran.com) and Islam (www.islameyat.com)
or encourage Muslims and others to convert to
Christianity (www.biblicalchristianity.freeserve.
co.uk) were blocked, though their small number
Country Summaries
397