Emna Ben Jemaa

Emna Ben Jemaa is a blogger, frequent contributor to Tunis Hebdo and Africa Magazine, and Assistant Professor of Marketing at Time University in Tunis. She was arrested on Mai 21, 2010 then taken to a police station in Tunis, held for seven hours and treated very disrespectfully. She was interrogated about her online activities, her relation with Tunisian bloggers and journalists and her trips abroad. They also asked her about the organizers of the anti-censorships rally in front of the Tunisian Ministry of communication technologies  that was planed to be held the next day, on May 22, to protest the Internet filtering policy in the country.

She was also questioned about her relation with the U.S embassy in Tunis and was informed that her attendance of the three-day workshop for North African bloggers that was held  in February 2010 in the Moroccan capital Rabat and funded by Search for Common Ground (SFCG), a non-governmental organization based in Washington DC, could be perceived as espionage and lobbying foreign bodies, an act which, according to the newly adopted amendment to Article 61bis of the Penal Code that criminalizes contacting “agents of a foreign power to undermine the military or diplomatic situation in Tunisia”, could be punishable by up to 20 years in prison, with a minimum sentence of five years.