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Alert

Presidential pardon only remaining hope for cyber-dissident Zouhaïr Yahyaoui

(RSF/IFEX) - RSF has called on President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali to grant a swift pardon to jailed cyber-dissident Zouhaïr Yahyaoui, who is in very weak condition after staging a series of hunger strikes.

On 12 July 2003, the Tunis Court of Cassation, the country's highest appeal court, rejected a request by Yahyaoui's lawyer to have his conviction overturned. Yahyaoui has now exhausted all possible means of legal recourse.

"We condemn the hard line taken by the Tunisian judiciary with this cyber-dissident, whose only crime is to have dared to denounce President Ben Ali's totalitarian regime," RSF Secretary-General Robert Ménard said.

Yahyaoui was arrested on 4 June 2002 and sentenced on 10 July 2002 to two years in prison for allegedly circulating false news and making fraudulent use of Internet connections. In June 2003, he was awarded the first RSF cyber-freedom prize.