Blogging for Freedom: Hundreds of Tunisian Bloggers Campaign to Free Journalists Sofiene Chourabi and Photographer Nédhir Ktari

Journalist Sofiene Chourabi and photographer Nédhir Ktari, are still held hostages by a Libyan group since September 8^th, 2014. They travelled to Ajdabiya, in eastern Libya, to investigate the effects of the Libyan crisis on Tunisia.  Indeed, the eastern zone in Libya is a hub of fierce fighting between soldiers loyal to General Khalifa Haftar and extremist Islamist combatants.

The saga of the two journalists started in early September when they were shortly held by a militia closely associated with General Haftar in the town of Brega. They, then, were released under the condition of regaining Tunisia in less than 12 hours. Because of incessant fighting and chaos, they were unable to leave Libya. They were then soon captured again for a second time by unknown kidnappers, and there has been no news of them since.

In the beginning of January, a web site assuming to be loyal to the Islamic State (IS) in Libya claimed the assassination of the two Tunisian journalists. This indeed raised a roaring anger of Tunisian civil society and activists who were blaming the leniency of the Tunisian government in its dealing with the affair. Very soon, news came from Libya certifying that Sofiene and Nadhir are still alive.

Today, there is a growing concern over the fate of the two Tunisian journalists because of the chaos reigning in Libya and the absence of real efforts from Tunisian officials to exercise pressure on Libyan authorities. So far, different  support demonstrations took place all over the country.

I am writing this blog post to condemn the Tunisian government’s inefficiency to help releasing the hostages and to renew my endless support to them, to free expression and journalism. My heartfelt thoughts go to their families and colleagues who are as much worried as all Tunisian citizens about their fate. We will not stop writing and demonstrating so that Libyan and Tunisian authorities show more efforts to intervene and release them. Sofiene and Nadhir are two Tunisian citizens who were simply doing their job. Any harm that could befall them would cause catastrophic consequences.

After the call of Open Blogging Workshops, today, January 21^st, is proclaimed as a national day of blogging campaigning for the freedom of Sofiene and Nadhir with a special hashtag created for the event and called “Tadwinet el Horria” “blogging for for freedom” #‏تدوينة_الحرية. Hundreds of Tunisian bloggers, journalists and cyber activists have written in different languages their support to Sofiene and Nadhir; they also called for their release and blamed Tunisian authorities’ laxity. 

‪#‎FreeSofiene‬ ‪#‎FreeNadir‬

#‏تدوينة_الحرّية‬