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Tunisian official: Call anti-corruption NGO ‘traitors’

Founding member of the ruling Nidaa Tounes party ordered staff to slander an anti-corruption civil society group.

April 24, 2017 at 2:45 pm

Founding member of the ruling Nidaa Tounes party ordered staff to slander an anti-corruption civil society group in an effort to discredit it, a leaked recording appears to show.

In the recording, aired on Tunisia’s private TV station Nessma, Nabil Karoui can be heard ordering his staff to slander watchdog IWatch and urging journalists to label IWatch “thieves”, “traitors” and “liars”.

We should prepare a press conference focusing on IWatch. We should prepare a defamation ad. We bring people, our own journalists who do investigation and all, and we say ‘those are betraying the country’, you understand, and ‘they are agents’ who are receiving money to sell their own country.

IWatch was founded following the 2011 Tunisian revolution as a civil society organisation to fight widespread corruption after the authoritarianism of former President Zine El Abidne Ben Ali. The group was able to draft whistleblower protection laws passed by the Tunisian parliament earlier this year.

In a released statement, partner NGO organisation Transparency International said that the leaked recordings appear to be part of an organised smear campaign aimed at “damaging the reputation of the organisation and its members”.

These threats to intimidate IWatch and those associated with it are sickening and must be investigated fully. Its members are courageous and dedicated. They are working for a Tunisia that respects the rule of law and provides justice for all.

Nessma TV first targeted IWatch in a defamation lawsuit in July last year after the NGO’s an investigative report detailed systematic tax avoidance by Nessma‘s owners, the Karoui brothers.

IWatch subsequently called on the Ministry of Finance to verify the channel’s tax status and ensure media transparency which Nessma responded to by defaming the group including broadcasting personal pictures of IWatch members, according to the Washington Post.

Though the government has not responded with any concrete measures following the defamation threats against IWatch last year, Tunisian media reported last week that a judicial inquiry into the leaked recording had been launched.

Transparency International also urged Tunisian authorities to investigate the allegations of intimidation against IWatch as part of a wider process of acknowledging and protecting the work of civil society.