The daily correspondent Release in Tunisia was brutalized by the security forces on Friday January 14 in Tunis, and prevented from covering a demonstration against President Kais Saied. “While he was covering a demonstration (…), our correspondent Mathieu Galtier was violently beaten by several police officers. The management of the newspaper strongly condemns this attack”, reacted the French daily on its site. The rallies against the president also marked the 11th anniversary of the fall of Zine El-Abidine Ben Ali. They were banned by the authorities and brutally dispersed by the security forces, giving rise to scenes of violence rarely seen in the capital.
In a press release published on Saturday, the National Union of Tunisian Journalists (SNJT) denounced “strongly barbaric violence” of the police against journalists who were on the ground on January 14. According to the SNJT, more than 20 police attacks have been recorded against journalists, “targeted as they wore their distinctive vests and asserted their journalistic character during the assault”. These attacks, also against demonstrators, “establish the state of police repression instead of the state of republican security“, added the same source.
“Mathieu Galtier was filming the muscular arrest of a demonstrator with his mobile phone when he was attacked by a uniformed policeman”, reports Liberationnot. The correspondent, quoted by the newspaper, explains that he immediately identified himself as a journalist in French and Arabic, while the policeman tried to take his phone. The journalist then explains that he was “lifted and dragged between two vans”. “They started hitting me all over the place, I was on the ground, curled up in a fetal position, I was shouting that I was a journalist”.
“One of them sprayed me with gas at close range. They kicked me. Eventually they took my phone, my press card and left me there.”
Mathieu Galtier, correspondent for “Liberation” in Tunisiain “Liberation”
Once treated by the firefighters, the correspondent indicates that his belongings were returned to him, with the exception of the memory card of his telephone on which his photos and videos were recorded. The journalist, who has been living in Tunisia for six years, has been prescribed “fifteen days of rest“. A doctor noted in particular “‘a scratch 10 centimeters in diameter’ on the forehead”.
The Association of Foreign Correspondents in North Africa (NAFCC) also condemns in a statement “the violence exerted by the security forces on the journalists who covered the mobilizations” in Tunis where was reached “a level of violence not seen since the creation of NAFCC in 2014”. “A photographer was notably clubbed and a video journalist hustled and prevented from filming”, adds the association. She calls for an investigation “without delay”.