Tunisian journalist Zied El-Heni, known for his outspoken criticism of President Kais Saied's policies, was arrested and placed in detention on Friday 25 April after a court issued a warrant against him for the offence of "insulting a magistrate." The arrest stems from a Facebook post in which El-Heni condemned a judicial decision involving fellow journalist Khalifa El-Kasmi and a security agent, Abdel Aziz El-Chamkhi.
In the post, El-Heni wrote that El-Kasmi had spent three years in prison while El-Chamkhi had died in custody, and that the Court of Cassation — Tunisia's highest judicial authority — had subsequently acquitted both men. Authorities invoked Article 86 of Tunisia's telecommunications law, a widely criticised piece of legislation that makes it a criminal offence to intentionally insult someone via a public telecommunications network, carrying a penalty of one to two years in prison and a fine.
The arrest drew swift condemnation from the National Union of Tunisian Journalists, which denounced what it called "a policy of censorship and an attack on the principle of freedom of expression, particularly in the digital sphere." The union's response reflects growing alarm among press freedom advocates, as numerous local and international human rights organisations have repeatedly accused the Tunisian authorities of restricting free speech and persecuting journalists under Saied's presidency.
El-Heni's case is not an isolated one. Multiple journalists and public figures in Tunisia have faced prosecution in recent years under laws critics say are being used to silence dissent rather than protect judicial integrity. Article 86 of the telecommunications law has been a particularly frequent instrument in such cases.
The arrest underscores the increasingly difficult environment for independent journalism in Tunisia, a country that was long seen as the most successful democratic transition to emerge from the 2011 Arab Spring uprisings. Since President Saied consolidated power — dissolving parliament and rewriting the constitution in 2021 and 2022 — press freedom organisations have warned of a steady erosion of civil liberties, with journalists, lawyers, and opposition figures among those targeted by the authorities.