(Tunis) It’s a cool but sunny December morning in Tunis and I’m sitting in front of… Serge Chapleau.
Yes, well, well, not the cartoonist of The Press. But almost.
I am in the conference room of the building of the National Union of Tunisian Journalists, on United States Avenue, very close to the city’s largest park. And I question a press cartoonist who seems to me to be the Tunisian Serge Chapleau.
INFOGRAPHICS THE PRESS
The similarities are striking. He began working as a cartoonist at a very young age, several decades ago. Now aged 65, he is one of the deans of his profession in his country. And he is as popular as he is respected.
PHOTO ALEXANDRE SIROIS, THE PRESS
The cartoonist Tawfiq Omrane
The big difference with my friend Serge is that Tawfiq Omrane is in the crosshairs of the authorities. He was arrested by police last September and briefly put behind bars.
In 2011, Tunisia had a revolution. All Tunisians were happy that we were living in a new democratic era. But in 2023, we are going backwards. It’s a disappointment.
Tawfiq Omrane, Tunisian cartoonist
He was first said to have been arrested for a bad check for 290 dinars (around $150 CAN) made in 2015 to an optician for glasses purchased from his father – and reimbursed in 2018.
However, this was not the subject that dominated his questioning by the police.
“The discussions about the bounced check lasted five minutes. Those on the caricatures lasted five hours, from 5 p.m. to 10 p.m.,” he says.
He believes that the straw that broke the camel’s back – and caused his arrest – was probably his drawing of the current president, Kaïs Saïed, presented as Frankenstein. A caricature which illustrates the cover of a political essay.
Tawfiq Omrane, a man with a soft voice and shy smile, specifies that the police were very courteous to him. But he was still transferred to a cell where there were 30 to 40 prisoners.
He was given a mattress and settled down where there was a free space, in front of the toilet. At 2 a.m. he was released. Due to “national and international pressure”, according to him.
IMAGE PROVIDED BY TAWFIQ OMRANE
Cover of an essay by Tunisian writer Kamel Riahi, on which we find a caricature by Tawfiq Omrane representing the Tunisian president, Kaïs Saïed
Of course, Tawfiq Omrane has already experienced worse repression. It was hell for him and for many others under the regime of Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali. This dictator reigned from 1987 until 2011, when he was ousted from power during the Arab Spring (January 14, which is 13 years ago this month).
For more than 23 years, Tawfiq Omrane only made caricatures once, clandestinely. “And so that people wouldn’t recognize the style, I drew with my left hand. »
The Arab Spring gave it wings again. From 2011, he was free again to practice his profession. He has done it with enthusiasm since then for various Tunisian media. He now publishes his caricatures mainly on the internet.
PHOTO FETHI BELAID, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE ARCHIVES
Clashes between security forces and demonstrators shook Tunis on January 14, 2011, following a speech to the nation by Tunisian President Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali. That day, President Ben Ali, whose portrait we see here, finally left power… and the country.
But today, the state seems to be seeking to delimit the places where this cartoonist can fly with his new wings.
After his stay behind bars, he learned that he was liable to a prison sentence for “harming others” because of his caricatures, under a presidential decree promulgated in September 2022.
PHOTO TARA TODRAS-WHITEHILL, THE NEW YORK TIMES ARCHIVES
The facade of a building in Sidi Bouzid bears a large poster depicting Mohamed Bouazizi, a fruit seller whose self-immolation in 2010 sparked the country’s Arab Spring revolution.
Officially, Decree 54 is an initiative to combat false news on the internet. But many in Tunisia, as well as abroad (including organizations like Amnesty International), believe that it aims to restrict freedom of expression.
“It’s a bit like a sword of Damocles, this decree,” says Tawfiq Omrane, who twists his neck to look towards the ceiling to show me that he knows that a danger could fall on him at any time. any time.
The result certainly pleases the authorities: he has become more cautious. “I experience self-censorship,” he summarizes.
He is not the only one.
To read tomorrow: “Assassinations, attacks… and order”